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Contents Preface

Unit 1 1. Plato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Epicurus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3. Marcus Aurelius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 4. St. Augustine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Unit 2 5. St. Thomas Aquinas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 6. Thomas Hobbes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 7. David Hume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 8. John Stuart Mill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Unit 3 9. Freidrich Nietzsche . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

10. Jean-Paul Sartre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 11. Theodore Dalrymple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Preface It has been my experience that most philosophy textbooks fall into one of two categories: (1) anthologies consisting almost entirely of primary source material without commentary or explanation, and which therefore leave the hapless beginner to fend for himself, or (2) a series of summaries of classic texts containing little of what the philosophers themselves actually wrote, so that one receives, at best, a secondhand report of what this or that thinker had to say.

My purpose in arranging the present volume has been to steer a middle course between these two extremes: to present the ideas of some of the greatest minds in as close to their original form as possible, while at the same time providing short commentaries that I hope will guide students toward a clearer understanding of the rather complex and difficult primary source selections they will encounter herein.

Moral philosophy, also known as ethics (from the Greek ethos, meaning “character”), engages in the rigorous, sustained, and systematic inquiry into the fundamental questions of good and evil, virtue and vice, justice and injustice—or, to use the words of Plato’s Socrates in the Gorgias, ethics examines “what ought the character of a man to be, and what his pursuits, and how far is he to go, both in adulthood and in youth.” I have chosen to include selections from primary texts that I believe are among the very best points of departure for beginning students who wish to develop a deeper understanding of the competing visions of the ethical life.

Let me add, finally, that although reading philosophy may be a laborious and time- consuming enterprise (most especially for beginners), you shall soon discover that the profound joys and satisfactions such reading delivers far exceed the initial investment of toil and trouble. As the philosopher Spinoza remarked, “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”

Unit 1

Chapter 1

Plato

THE RING OF GYGES (FROM PLATO’S REPUBLIC, 358E–361D) This short excerpt from Book II of Plato’s Republic features a young Glaucon (Plato’s brother, and one of the key interlocutors in the dialogue) playing “devil’s advocate,” challenging Socrates to defend the just life over the unjust life. Glaucon invokes the view held by certain freethinking intellectuals known as “sophists,” according to which justice exists only by convention, that is, by human custom or tradition, rather than by nature. These sophists claim that “to do injustice” (i.e., to have your way in all things, irrespective of the laws and of traditional morality) “is, by nature, good; to suffer injus- tice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good,” meaning that the harm done to you by suffer- ing injustice exceeds whatever good things your unjust deeds may bring you. And thus for those who have both committed injustice and been the victims of injustice, since they are not always free to do injustice without ever suffering injustice, they agree that it is best to not have either one; “hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just.” This is said by them to be the origin of justice: man-made contracts and laws. It is, further, a “mean” or “compromise” between the very best of all, which is to do injustice with impu- nity, and the worst of all, which is to be the victim of injustice, but without the power to exact re- venge; “and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honored by reason of the inability of men to do injustice.” Justice, on this view, is not a good in itself, but rather is a necessary evil that we tolerate because we are neither free to commit injustice without fear of punishment, nor are we guaranteed the freedom and power to retaliate against those who would do us harm. “For no man,” Glaucon continues, “who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did.”

Those who act justly, therefore, do so involuntarily because they are powerless to be unjust. Glaucon supports this view by appealing to an old myth, the myth of the Ring of Gyges, which runs something like this: Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia. One day, there was a terrible storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth where Gyges was tending his flock. Amazed at what he saw, Gyges descended into the opening where, among other marvels, he be- held a hollow brazen horse which contained a large corpse, wearing nothing but a gold ring. Gyges stole the ring and re-ascended. As he was sitting with the other shepherds later that day, Gyges

4 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, whereby he became invisible to the rest of the company. He contrived to be chosen as one of the messengers who were sent to the court, where- upon he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king to kill him, and then took over the kingdom.

Suppose now, says Glaucon, that there are two such magic rings, and the just man put on one of them and the unjust man put on the other. Does there exist any human being who could possi- bly resist the temptation to commit injustice with total impunity? That seems terribly unlikely: “No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with anyone at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.” According to Glaucon’s account, this is the most compelling statement in support of the view that men behave justly not because they see justice as inherently good, but only because they lack the ability to do injustice without fear of punishment or retribution. “For all men believe in their hearts,” he continues, “that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice . . . If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one an- other’s faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer in- justice.” We are all hypocrites.

Now comes the real test. If we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just man versus that of the unjust man, we must first look at each one in isolation. Let the unjust man be perfectly unjust, and the just man perfectly just. In addition, let the perfectly unjust man have a reputation for being perfectly just. Likewise, let the perfectly just man be thought the worst:

“then he will have been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by

the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of

death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost

extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of

them is the happier of the two.” It might be worth mentioning at this point that Socrates himself was arguably a just man, but

with a reputation for injustice, and was put to death by the citizens of Athens. And yet his two most illustrious students, Plato and Xenophon, are unanimous in claiming that Socrates was a genuinely happy man, despite being reviled by his fellow citizens. In order to make sense of all this, we will have to turn to our next two passages from Plato’s Republic.

PLATO’S REPUBLIC (352D–354A) Socrates begins his classic defense of the life of justice over that of injustice with a discussion of virtue or excellence. All things, he suggests, appear to be characterized by a specific work, function, or purpose “that could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing.” Now it should be noted that Socrates was known to frequent artisans and craftsmen of all types. The crafts, Socrates held, seem to provide a model for understanding from which the potential seeker of wisdom may derive no small benefit. In Plato’s Apology, for example, Socrates discovers that manual artisans, alone among the three classes of men he converses with, actually do possess some knowledge—not knowledge of the greatest things, to be sure, but knowledge of their own craft. The designer-craftsman possesses the knowledge or skill necessary to produce a given class of artifact—a pair of shoes, a house, a breastplate, etc.—an indefinite number of times. He grasps in

Chapter 1: Plato 5

particular what Aristotle called the “formal” and “final” causes, which determine the artifact’s for- mal structure as well as the end or purpose it is meant to serve. Every artifact has as its prescribed purpose a specific activity or work whose proper execution constitutes its characteristic “excel- lence,” “good,” or “virtue.” This in turn serves as the object of the artisan’s understanding: to know the form and the nature of a thing is to know its proper function. In Plato’s Cratylus, to give an illus- tration, Socrates indicates that a carpenter who wants to make a shuttle must first look to “that sort of thing whose nature is to weave.” This turns out to be its form (“what a shuttle itself is”). The shuttle maker must “put into [his material] the nature that naturally best suits it to perform its own work.” “And the same holds of all other tools . . .”1 If one were to broaden this narrowly technical model to encompass the whole of the natural world, then “virtue” would be the specific excellence whereby each thing—instrument, organ, or creature—is best suited to perform its specific function. In the passage from Plato’s Republic under discussion, Socrates expounds on this very question with the sophist Thrasymachus. Socrates tries, but initially fails, to get him to acknowledge “the work of a horse or of anything else whatsoever to be that which one can do only with it, or best with it.” He successfully applies this argument to the eyes and ears, and then seizes on the example of a pruning knife: one may cut a slip from a vine with, among other things, a dagger or a leather-cutter, but one could not do as fine a job with anything other than a pruning knife made for this very purpose. Thrasymachus agrees with this as well as with the broader claim that there must be a virtue for each thing to which some work is assigned—eyes, ears, and “all other things”—without which the thing in question would necessarily do its work badly. Socrates thereupon shifts the emphasis from instru- ments and organs (whose specific functions are more or less clearly discernible) to the human soul, and then launches into his lengthy presentation on the virtue or excellence specific to the human being as such, justice, without which no human being can live well (Rep. 353a–d).

PLATO’S REPUBLIC (442C–444A) In this section, Socrates discusses the four cardinal virtues that together comprise the comprehen- sive excellence of the human being: namely courage, wisdom, moderation, and justice. In order to make sense of these virtues, we must first say a few words about the human soul, which is charac- terized, according to Socrates in an earlier passage in the Republic, by three hierarchically structured faculties or powers. These are, going from lowest to highest: (1) appetite or desire, the part of us which seeks bodily satisfaction, but which also feels desire or yearning for something outside of itself; (2) spiritedness, the seat of anger, pride, courage, ambition, and the love of one’s own; and finally (3) reason, the ability to deliberate about means and ends, and to discriminate between true and merely apparent goods. A happy and healthy soul, Socrates suggests, will be one in which each of the three faculties does its proper work (i.e., the rational part identifies the good—or what is in the individual’s best interest—and issues commands to the other two faculties; the spirited part obeys reason’s commands, and thus only gets angry at the right time and for the right reasons, etc.; and the appetitive part desires only what reason prescribes as good for the individual). Thus the cou- rageous man will be the one who obeys reason with respect to what he ought and ought not to fear. We shall call wise the one “who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole.” Moderation is the condition whereby the three faculties of the soul are “in friendly harmony,” and the moderate man will be him “in whom the one ruling princi- ple of reason, and the two subject ones of spiritedness and desire are equally agreed that reason

1 Plato Cratylus, trans. C. D. C. Reeve, in Plato: The Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publish- ing, 1997), 389a–c.

6 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

ought to rule, and do not rebel.” Lastly, justice emerges as the active condition of the moderate in- dividual. As Socrates explains:

“for the just man does not let each of the three parts of his soul meddle with each other,

but really sets his own inner life in good order and is master of himself and arranges

himself, is at peace with himself, and harmonizes the three parts . . . when he has

bound all these together, and is no longer many, but has become one, entirely

moderate and harmonized. Then, and only then, he proceeds to act . . . whether

concerning the acquisition of money, or in the care of the body, or in some affair of

politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-

operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge

that supervises this action, wisdom, and that which at any time undoes this condition,

he will call unjust action, and the opinion which supervises this action, ignorance.” So it is that the just individual will be disinclined to act viciously because his two lower faculties

(appetite and spiritedness) will be guided by what is good for the whole human being (as prescribed by reason).

PLATO’S GORGIAS (483A–508A) 1. Callicles on Nature and Convention

Just prior to Callicles’s entrance into the conversation, Socrates had asserted that it is prefer- able to suffer injustice than to commit injustice, because the act of committing injustice harms the soul of the doer, whereas, even though the victim’s body gets harmed, the integ- rity of his soul remains intact, (i.e., the victim is no less morally virtuous or excellent on ac- count of having been treated unjustly). Socrates here presupposes a moral psychology simi- lar to the one sketched in the passages we examined from the Republic, according to which a just soul is one in which each of its three parts act in harmony with one another and obey the commands of reason. This in turn presupposes that a human being is not merely a body, but a composite of body and soul wherein the soul, guided by reason, rules over and is there- fore superior to the body. Thus, in the case of the victim of injustice, what is lower in him (his body) suffers harm, but what is higher in him (his soul) remains unharmed (in the sense that his soul is not made worse on account of his having been a victim of injustice). In the case of the doer of injustice, on the other hand, his evil actions have the effect of damaging his soul in a manner not unlike (to make a parallel between soul and body) that in which imbibing poison has the effect of damaging the body. In both cases, harm invariably results from living or acting in a manner that is contrary to human nature. The interlocutor Callicles, who is arguably Socrates’s staunchest critic in all of the Platonic dialogues, will have none of it. Just as Socrates in both the Republic and the Gorgias dis- cusses the virtue of justice as if it were rooted in nature (i.e., the nature of the human soul), Callicles will invoke his own “natural” standard of justice, one that is diametrically opposed to that of Socrates. Callicles begins by making the crucial distinction between nature and convention:

Chapter 1: Plato 7

“. . . for by the rule of nature, to suffer injustice is the greater disgrace because the greater

evil, whereas by convention to do evil is the more disgraceful. For the suffering of

injustice is not the part of a man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live;

since when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable to help himself, or any

other about whom he cares.” The manly man, who by nature (according to Callicles, at least) represents the standard of human excellence, is him who has the freedom and power to avenge those who wrong him. It is the mark of slavishness not to have recourse to retributive action against those who wrong us. But human custom says that to commit injustice is worse than suffering it. And this, Callicles explains (anticipating Nietzsche’s analysis of Master and Slave Morality), is because “the makers of laws are the majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to themselves and to their own interests; and they terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the better of them . . .” Thus “conventional” morality, accord- ing to which equality ought to prevail, with nobody taking more than their “fair share,” is really a kind of preemptive strike put forth by the weak and slavish multitudes against their betters, the manly alpha-males, in order to contain their aggressive, exploitative, and impe- rialistic passions. According to this egalitarian, conventional morality, Callicles explains, “the endeavor to have more than the many is . . . said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice, whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker.” For “among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races . . . justice consists in the superior ruling over and hav- ing more than the inferior.” According to Callicles, then, humanity is divided up into the few noble, superior men, and the vast herd of slavish, inferior men, and that true justice consists in the former having more than the latter. Conventional justice (or natural injustice), on the other hand, makes the critical error of treating unequals as though they were equals, and has the stultifying effect of taking “the best and strongest from their youth upwards,” and taming them “like young lions—charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to them, that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the honorable and the just.” According to the law of nature, Callicles contends, might makes right. Nature rewards the aggression of the stronger. Socrates then launches into a lengthy question-and-answer session with Callicles, which he prefaces by praising his bold interlocutor for taking seriously the most important question of human existence—namely, “what ought the character of a man to be, and what his pur- suits, and how far is he to go, both in adulthood and in youth.” With respect to Callicles’s assertions that “natural justice” consists in the “superior” taking the property of the “infe- rior” by force, that the “better” should rule over the “worse,” and that the “noble” should have more than the “mean,” Socrates asks Callicles for some clarification about precisely who are the “superior,” the “better,” and the “noble.” Callicles admits that “the superior and better and stronger” are one and the same. This, however, leads to a state of affairs that contradicts Callicles’s original claim. For if the many are by nature superior to the one (that is, through sheer force of numbers), and if the laws of the many are the laws of the superior, and the superior class is better, AND in addition the laws of the many are precisely those laws that promote equality, then the many are NOT the slavish, inferior class (as Cal- licles previously asserted) but rather the superior class who rule over the one or the few. Callicles dismisses Socrates’s argument as pure nonsense, at which point Socrates demands clarification about those specific qualities that distinguish an individual as one of the

8 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

superior class. Callicles responds that the wise man is the superior one, and that he ought to rule over the rest. After still more clarification about what wisdom consists in, Callicles concludes that the wise men (the “superior” individuals) are “those who are wise and cou- rageous in the administration of a city—they ought to be the rulers of their cities, and justice consists in their having more than their subjects.”

2. Self-Mastery vs Self-Abasement So far Callicles has spoken exclusively about superior men ruling over inferior men. At this point Socrates introduces a new understanding of rule—not the rule of one man over an- other, but the rule of one man over himself, i.e., self-mastery or self-rule, “that a man should be moderate and master of himself, and ruler of his own pleasures and passions.” Callicles takes Socrates’s suggestion to be a foolish one: “for how can a man be happy who is the servant of anything?” On the contrary, Callicles plainly asserts, “he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to chastise them; but when they have grown to their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings.” And this, Callicles concludes, is the mark of “natural justice and nobility.” The many look down on this total lack of restraint as “base,” but only because they lack the strength and courage to satisfy all of their desires, and they are, in addition, ashamed of their own weakness in this regard: “they enslave the nobler natures, and being unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise moderation and [conventional] justice out of their own cowardice.” Callicles concludes (following the shepherd Gyges’s example): “lux- ury and intemperance and license, if they be provided with means, are virtue and happi- ness.” Whereupon Socrates again praises Callicles, this time for his outspokenness and hon- esty: “There is a noble freedom, Callicles, in your way of approaching the argument; for what you say is what the rest of the world thinks, but does not like to say.” Nevertheless, Socrates is far from persuaded that a life dedicated to vulgar hedonism is a good one. He contrasts a life of moderation, in which one is easily satisfied with the bare essentials re- quired by nature, with a life of intemperance, in which a man spends his entire life continu- ously satisfying unlimited desires. Socrates humorously likens this second kind of life both to a leaky jar that must forever be refilled, and to a cormorant (a species of bird that is known to eat and defecate at the same time). Callicles will not accept that the life of moderation is a happier one than the life of dissipation, because “the one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left . . . he has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but the pleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx.” In other words, life does not seem worth living if one is incapable of enjoying a never-ending stream of bodily pleasures. On this view, Socrates quips (with Callicles’s approval), the good life is reduced to the condition of perpetually scratching an itch.

3. Socrates’s Refutation of Callicles’s Vulgar Hedonism Callicles readily asserts that pleasure and good are one and the same. Socrates will attempt to expose the inconsistency in Callicles’s statement through a long and somewhat compli- cated argument, whose main points we will briefly summarize here: a. Pleasure is identical to good, and pain is identical to evil (according to Callicles) b. Good and evil, and happiness and misery, however, are contraries, and as such they

cannot coexist in the same individual in the same respect. It is impossible, in other words, to be both happy and miserable, or good and evil, at the same time, but one must be the one or the other.

c. When hungry or thirsty, one experiences pain (i.e., the pain of hunger or thirst). d. One notices that pleasure is gradually increased and pain is gradually diminished as the

hungry or thirsty individual begins to eat or drink until he reaches the point of satisfaction.

e. This means that one does indeed experience pleasure and pain at the same time.

Chapter 1: Plato 9

f. Pleasure and pain thus cannot be contraries (as we agreed good and evil, and happi- ness and misery are), but rather occupy a continuum.

g. Contrary to Callicles’s contention, then, pleasure and pain cannot be identical with good and evil, happiness and misery.

Socrates then turns to the question of beneficial and harmful pleasures and pains; those which promote the health of the body are rightly deemed beneficial, or good, whereas those which tend to diminish health are rightly deemed harmful, or evil. (Note that the standard of good and evil pleasures and pains is natural—as opposed to conventional—namely the health of the body.) Thus, contrary to the claim of vulgar hedonism, that all pleasures are good and all pains evil, Socrates shows us that some pleasures are evil and some pains good, and that the ultimate standard by which we ought to judge pleasures and pains is the good—in the case of bodily pleasures and pains, that which is conducive to health. In fact, Socrates affirms, the good is the standard of all of human endeavor, and two of the primary characteristics of goodness are order and harmony: “ ‘healthy,’ as I conceive, is the name which is given to the regular order of the body, from which comes health and every other bodily excellence . . .” Likewise, “ ‘lawful’ and ‘law’ are the names which are given to the regular order and action of the soul, and these make men lawful and orderly—and so we have moderation and justice . . .” Socrates concludes his refutation of Callicles’s spirited de- fense of vulgar hedonism with the following parting words:

“This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought to have, and towards which he

ought to direct all the energies both of himself and of the city, acting so that he may

have moderation and justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to

be unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire to satisfy them by leading a robber’s

life. Such a one is the friend neither of god nor man, for he is incapable of communion,

and he who is incapable of communion is also incapable of friendship. And

philosophers tell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and orderliness

and moderation and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and men,

and that this universe is therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my

friend . . .”

10 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

From Plato’s Republic, Book II (359a-360d)

GLAUCON: They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;—it is a mean or compromise, be- tween the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honored by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice.

Now that those who practice justice do so involuntarily and because they have not the power to be unjust will best appear if we imagine something of this kind: having given both to the just and the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and see whither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the very act the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road, following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good, and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are sup- posing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradi- tion, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he be- held a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met to- gether, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the col- let outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result—when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reap- peared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; whereas soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom. Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the

The Republic by Plato, Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

Chapter 1: Plato 11

market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another’s faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.

Now, if we are to form a real judgment of the life of the just and unjust, we must isolate them; there is no other way; and how is the isolation to be effected? I answer: Let the unjust man be entirely unjust, and the just man entirely just; nothing is to be taken away from ei- ther of them, and both are to be perfectly furnished for the work of their respective lives. First, let the unjust be like other distinguished masters of craft; like the skilful pilot or physi- cian, who knows intuitively his own powers and keeps within their limits, and who, if he fails at any point, is able to recover himself. So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice: (he who is found out is nobody) for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice. If he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself; he must be one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and who can force his way where force is required by his courage and strength, and command of money and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplic- ity, wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem good. There must be no seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be honored and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of honors and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a state of life the opposite of the former. Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst; then he will have been put to the proof; and we shall see whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death; being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two.

12 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

From Plato’s Republic (352d-354a) Socrates and Thrasymachus

I will proceed by asking a question: Would you not say that there is some work that belongs to a horse?

I should. And the work of a horse or of anything would be that which could not be accom-

plished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing? I do not understand, he said. Let me explain: Can you see, except with the eye? Certainly not. Or hear, except with the ear? No. These then may be truly said to be the work of each? They may. But you can cut off a vine-branch with a dagger or a leather-cutter or many other

things? Of course. And yet not so well as with a pruning-knife made for this purpose? True. May we not say that this is the work of a pruning-knife? We may. Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning when I

asked the question whether the work of anything would be that which could not be accom- plished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?

I understand your meaning, he said, and agree with you. And does there seem to you also to be an excellence for each thing to which some

work is assigned? Need I ask again whether the eyes have some work? It has. And has not the eye an excellence? Yes. And the ears have some work and an excellence also? True. And the same is true of all other things; they have each of them a work and a special

excellence? That is so. Well, and can the eyes ever do a fine job of their work if they are lacking in their own

proper excellence and have a defect instead? How can they, he said, if they are blind and cannot see? You mean to say, if they have lost their proper excellence, which is sight; but I have not

arrived at that point yet. I would rather ask the question more generally, and only inquire whether their work, the things to be done by them, will be done well by their own proper excellence, and fail of fulfilling them by their own defect?

Certainly, he replied.

The Republic by Plato, Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

Chapter 1: Plato 13

I might say the same of the ears; when deprived of their own proper excellence they will do their work badly?

True. And the same observation will apply to all other things? I agree. Well; is there not some work of the soul which nothing else could ever accomplish? For

example, managing, ruling, and deliberating, and the like. Are not these functions proper to the soul, and can they rightly be assigned to any other?

To no other. And is not living to be reckoned the work of the soul? Assuredly, he said. And has not the soul an excellence also? Yes. Then, Thrasymachus, will the soul ever accomplish its work well if deprived of its

excellence? Impossible. Then a bad soul necessarily rules and manages badly, while a good soul does all these

things well? Yes, necessarily. And we have admitted that justice is the excellence of the soul, and injustice the defect

of the soul? That has been admitted. Then the just soul and the just man will live well, and the unjust man will live badly? That is what your argument proves. And he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who lives badly the reverse of

happy? Certainly. Then the just man is happy, and the unjust wretched? So be it. But happiness and not wretchedness is profitable. Of course. Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice can never be more profitable than justice.

14 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

From Plato’s Republic Book IV (442c-444a)

Socrates and Glaucon

He is to be deemed courageous whose spirited part retains in pleasure and in pain the com- mands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear. . . .

Right, he replied. And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims

these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the inter- est of each of the three parts and of the whole?

Assuredly. And would you not say that he is moderate who has these same elements in friendly

harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirited- ness and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel?

Certainly, he said, that is the true account of moderation whether in the city or individual.

And surely, I said, we have explained again and again how and by virtue of what qual- ity a man will be just.

That is very certain. And is justice dimmer in the individual, and is her form different, or is she the same

which we found her to be in the city? There is no difference in my opinion, he said. Because, if any doubt is still lingering in our minds, a few commonplace instances will

satisfy us of the truth of what I am saying. What sort of instances do you mean? If the case is put to us, must we not admit that the just city, or the man who is trained

in the principles of such a city, will be less likely than the unjust to make away with a de- posit of gold or silver? Would any one deny this?

No one, he replied. Will the just man or citizen ever be guilty of sacrilege or theft, or treachery either to his

friends or to his country? Never. Neither will he ever break faith where there have been oaths or agreements? Impossible. No one will be less likely to commit adultery, or to dishonor his father and mother, or

to fail in his religious duties? No one. And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether in ruling or

being ruled? Exactly so. . . . But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned with what

is within, with respect to what truly concerns him and his own: for the just man does not let each of the three parts of his soul meddle with each other, but really sets his own inner life

The Republic by Plato, Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

Chapter 1: Plato 15

in good order and is master of himself and arranges himself, is at peace with himself, and harmonizes the three parts, which may be compared to the higher, lower, and middle notes of the harmonic scale, and the intermediate intervals—when he has bound all these to- gether, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely moderate and harmonized. Then, and only then, he proceeds to act, if he does act in some way, whether concerning the acquisition of money, or in the care of the body, or in some affair of politics or private business; always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this har- monious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge that supervises this action, wisdom, and that which at any time undoes this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which supervises this action, ignorance.

16 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

From Plato’s Gorgias (483a-508a) Socrates and Callicles

CALLICLES: . . . for by the rule of nature, to suffer injustice is the greater disgrace because the greater evil, whereas by convention to do evil is the more disgraceful. For the suffering of injustice is not the part of a man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live; since when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable to help himself, or any other about whom he cares. The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of laws are the majority who are weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to them- selves and to their own interests; and they terrify the stronger sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the better of them; and they say, that dishonesty is shameful and unjust; meaning, by the word injustice, the desire of a man to have more than his neighbors; for knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad of equality. And therefore the endeavor to have more than the many, is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice, whereas nature her- self intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father the Scythians? Or one could tell of several other such cases. Nay, but these are the men who act according to nature; yes, by Heaven, and according to the law of nature: not, perhaps, according to that artificial law, which we invent and impose upon our fellows, of whom we take the best and strongest from their youth upwards, and tame them like young lions—charming them with the sound of the voice, and saying to them, that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the honorable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through, and escape from all this; he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws which are against nature: the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth. And this I take to be the sentiment of Pindar, when he says in his poem, that

‘Law is the king of all, of mortals as well as of immortals;’ this, as he says, ‘Makes might to be right, doing violence with highest hand; as I infer from the deeds of

Heracles, for without buying them—’—I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is, that without buying them, and without their being given to him, he carried off the oxen of Geryon, according to the law of natural right, and that the oxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and superior. And this is true, as you may ascertain, if you will leave philosophy and go on to higher things: for philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life. Even if a man has good parts, still, if he carries philosophy into later life, he is necessarily ignorant of all those things which a gen- tleman and a person of honor ought to know; he is inexperienced in the laws of the city, and in the language which ought to be used in the dealings of man with man, whether private or public, and utterly ignorant of the pleasures and desires of mankind and of human charac- ter in general. And people of this sort, when they betake themselves to politics or business,

Gorgias by Plato, Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

Chapter 1: Plato 17

are as ridiculous as I imagine the politicians to be, when they make their appearance in the arena of philosophy . . .

SOCRATES: Now there is no nobler enquiry, Callicles, than that which you censure me for making—What ought the character of a man to be, and what his pursuits, and how far is he to go, both in adulthood and in youth? For be assured that if I err in my own conduct I do not err intentionally, but from ignorance. Do not then desist from advising me, now that you have begun, until I have learned clearly what this is which I am to practice, and how I may acquire it. And if you find me assenting to your words, and hereafter not doing that to which I assented, call me ‘dolt,’ and deem me unworthy of receiving further instruction. Once more, then, tell me what you and Pindar mean by natural justice: Do you not mean that the superior should take the property of the inferior by force; that the better should rule the worse, the noble have more than the mean? Am I not right in my recollection?

CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I was saying, and so I still aver. SOCRATES: And do you mean by the better the same as the superior? for I could not

make out what you were saying at the time—whether you meant by the superior the stron- ger, and that the weaker must obey the stronger, as you seemed to imply when you said that great cities attack small ones in accordance with natural right, because they are supe- rior and stronger, as though the superior and stronger and better were the same; or whether the better may be also the inferior and weaker, and the superior the worse, or whether bet- ter is to be defined in the same way as superior:—this is the point which I want to have cleared up. Are the superior and better and stronger the same or different?

CALLICLES: I say unequivocally that they are the same. SOCRATES: Then the many are by nature superior to the one, against whom, as you

were saying, they make the laws? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then the laws of the many are the laws of the superior? CALLICLES: Very true. SOCRATES: Then they are the laws of the better; for the superior class are far better,

as you were saying? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And since they are superior, the laws which are made by them are by

nature good? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And are not the many of opinion, as you were lately saying, that justice is

equality, and that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice?—is that so or not? An- swer, Callicles, and let no modesty be found to come in the way; do the many think, or do they not think thus?—I must beg of you to answer, in order that if you agree with me I may fortify myself by the assent of so competent an authority.

CALLICLES: Yes; the opinion of the many is what you say. SOCRATES: Then not only custom but nature also affirms that to do injustice is more

disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality; so that you seem to have been wrong in your former assertion, when accusing me you said that nature and custom are opposed, and that I, knowing this, was dishonestly playing between them, appealing to custom when the argument is about nature, and to nature when the argument is about custom?

CALLICLES: This man will never cease talking nonsense. At your age, Socrates, are you not ashamed to be catching at words and chuckling over some verbal slip? Do you not see—have I not told you already, that by superior I mean better: do you imagine me to say, that if a rabble of slaves and nonentities, who are of no use except perhaps for their physical strength, get together, their very words are laws?

SOCRATES: Ho! My philosopher, is that your line?

18 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: I was thinking, Callicles, that something of the kind must have been in

your mind, and that is why I repeated the question—What is the superior? I wanted to know clearly what you meant; for you surely do not think that two men are better than one, or that your slaves are better than you because they are stronger? Then please to begin again, and tell me who the better are, if they are not the stronger; and I will ask you, great Sir, to be a little milder in your instructions, or I shall have to run away from you.

CALLICLES: You are ironical. SOCRATES: No, by the hero Zethus, Callicles, by whose aid you were just now saying

many ironical things against me, I am not:—tell me, then, whom you mean, by the better? CALLICLES: I mean the more excellent. SOCRATES: Do you not see that you are yourself using words which have no meaning

and that you are explaining nothing?—will you tell me whether you mean by the better and superior the wiser, or if not, whom?

CALLICLES: Most assuredly, I do mean the wiser. SOCRATES: Then according to you, one wise man may often be superior to ten thou-

sand fools, and he ought to rule them, and they ought to be his subjects, and he ought to have more than they should. This is what I believe that you mean (and you must not sup- pose that I am word-catching), if you allow that the one is superior to the ten thousand?

CALLICLES: Yes; that is what I mean, and that is what I conceive to be natural justice—that the better and wiser should rule and have more than the inferior.

SOCRATES: Stop there, and let me ask you what you would say in this case: Let us suppose that we are all together as we are now; there are several of us, and we have a large common store of meats and drinks, and there are all sorts of persons in our company hav- ing various degrees of strength and weakness, and one of us, being a physician, is wiser in the matter of food than all the rest, and he is probably stronger than some and not so strong as others of us—will he not, being wiser, be also better than we are, and our superior in this matter of food?

CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Either, then, he will have a larger share of the meats and drinks, because

he is better, or he will have the distribution of all of them by reason of his authority, but he will not expend or make use of a larger share of them on his own person, or if he does, he will be punished;—his share will exceed that of some, and be less than that of others, and if he be the weakest of all, he being the best of all will have the smallest share of all, Callicles:—am I not right, my friend?

CALLICLES: You talk about meats and drinks and physicians and other nonsense; I am not speaking of them.

SOCRATES: Well, but do you admit that the wiser is the better? Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And ought not the better to have a larger share? CALLICLES: Not of meats and drinks. SOCRATES: I understand: then, perhaps, of coats—the most skillful weaver ought to

have the largest coat, and the greatest number of them, and go about clothed in the best and finest of them?

CALLICLES: Enough about coats! SOCRATES: Then the most skillful and best in making shoes ought to have the ad-

vantage in shoes; the shoemaker, clearly, should walk about in the largest shoes, and have the greatest number of them?

CALLICLES: Fudge about shoes! What nonsense are you talking? SOCRATES: Or, if this is not your meaning, perhaps you would say that the wise and

good and true husbandman should actually have a larger share of seeds, and have as much seed as possible for his own land?

Chapter 1: Plato 19

CALLICLES: How you go on, always talking in the same way, Socrates! SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, and also about the same things. CALLICLES: Yes, by the Gods, you are literally always talking of cobblers and fullers

and cooks and doctors, as if this had to do with our argument. SOCRATES: But why will you not tell me in what a man must be superior and wiser in

order to claim a larger share; will you neither accept a suggestion, nor offer one? CALLICLES: I have already told you. In the first place, I mean by superiors not cob-

blers or cooks, but wise politicians who understand the administration of a city, and who are not only wise, but also valiant and able to carry out their designs, and not the men to faint from want of soul.

SOCRATES: See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my charge against you is from that which you bring against me, for you reproach me with always saying the same; but I reproach you with never saying the same about the same things, for at one time you were defining the better and the superior to be the stronger, then again as the wiser, and now you bring forward a new notion; the superior and the better are now declared by you to be the more courageous: I wish, my good friend, that you would tell me, once for all, whom you affirm to be the better and superior, and in what they are better?

CALLICLES: I have already told you that I mean those who are wise and courageous in the administration of a city—they ought to be the rulers of their cities, and justice consists in their having more than their subjects.

SOCRATES: But whether rulers or subjects, will they or will they not have more than themselves, my friend?

CALLICLES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: I mean that every man is his own ruler; but perhaps you think that there

is no necessity for him to rule himself; he is only required to rule others? CALLICLES: What do you mean by his ‘ruling over himself’? SOCRATES: A simple thing enough; just what is commonly said, that a man should be

moderate and master of himself, and ruler of his own pleasures and passions. CALLICLES: What innocence! you mean those fools,—the moderate? SOCRATES: Certainly:—any one may know that to be my meaning. CALLICLES: Quite so, Socrates; and they are really fools, for how can a man be happy

who is the servant of anything? On the contrary, I plainly assert, that he who would truly live ought to allow his desires to wax to the uttermost, and not to chastise them; but when they have grown to their greatest he should have courage and intelligence to minister to them and to satisfy all his longings. And this I affirm to be natural justice and nobility. To this however the many cannot attain; and they blame the strong man because they are ashamed of their own weakness, which they desire to conceal, and hence they say that intemperance is base. As I have remarked already, they enslave the nobler natures, and be- ing unable to satisfy their pleasures, they praise moderation and justice out of their own cowardice. For if a man had been originally the son of a king, or had a nature capable of acquiring an empire or a tyranny or sovereignty, what could be more truly base or evil than moderation—to a man like him, I say, who might freely be enjoying every good, and has no one to stand in his way, and yet has admitted custom and reason and the opinion of other men to be lords over him?—must not he be in a miserable plight whom the reputation of justice and moderation hinders from giving more to his friends than to his enemies, even though he be a ruler in his city? Nay, Socrates, for you profess to be a votary of the truth, and the truth is this:—that luxury and intemperance and license, if they be provided with means, are virtue and happiness—all the rest is a mere bauble, agreements contrary to nature, foolish talk of men, nothing worth.

SOCRATES: There is a noble freedom, Callicles, in your way of approaching the argu- ment; for what you say is what the rest of the world think, but do not like to say. And I must beg of you to persevere, that the true rule of human life may become manifest. Tell me,

20 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

then:—you say, do you not, that in the rightly-developed man the passions ought not to be controlled, but that we should let them grow to the utmost and somehow or other satisfy them, and that this is virtue?

CALLICLES: Yes; I do. SOCRATES: Then those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy? CALLICLES: No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be the happiest of all. SOCRATES: But surely life according to your view is an awful thing; and indeed I think

that Euripides may have been right in saying, ‘Who knows if life be not death and death life;’ and that we are very likely dead; I have heard a philosopher say that at this moment we

are actually dead, and that the body is our tomb, and that the part of the soul which is the seat of the desires is liable to be tossed about by words and blown up and down; and some ingenious person, probably a Sicilian or an Italian, playing with the word, invented a tale in which he called the soul—because of its believing and make-believe nature—a vessel, and the ignorant he called the uninitiated or leaky, and the place in the souls of the uninitiated in which the desires are seated, being the intemperate and incontinent part, he compared to a vessel full of holes, because it can never be satisfied. He is not of your way of thinking, Callicles, for he declares, that of all the souls in Hades, meaning the invisible world, these uninitiated or leaky persons are the most miserable, and that they pour water into a vessel which is full of holes out of a colander which is similarly perforated. The colander, as my informer assures me, is the soul, and the soul which he compares to a colander is the soul of the ignorant, which is likewise full of holes, and therefore incontinent, owing to a bad memory and want of faith. These notions are strange enough, but they show the principle which, if I can, I would gladly prove to you; that you should change your mind, and, instead of the intemperate and insatiate life, choose that which is orderly and sufficient and has a due provision for daily needs. Do I make any impression on you, and are you coming over to the opinion that the orderly are happier than the intemperate? Or do I fail to persuade you, and, however many tales I rehearse to you, do you continue of the same opinion still?

CALLICLES: The latter, Socrates, is more like the truth. SOCRATES: Well, I will tell you another image, which comes out of the same school:—

Let me request you to consider how far you would accept this as an account of the two lives of the moderate and intemperate in a figure:—There are two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the one man has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a great deal of toil and difficulty; but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble with them or care about them. The other, in like manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their respective lives:—And now would you say that the life of the intemperate is happier than that of the moderate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is the truth?

CALLICLES: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but the pleasure depends on the superabun- dance of the influx.

SOCRATES: But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and the holes must be large for the liquid to escape.

CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead man, or of a

stone, but of a cormorant; you mean that he is to be hungering and eating? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And he is to be thirsting and drinking?

Chapter 1: Plato 21

CALLICLES: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them.

SOCRATES: Excellent; go on as you have begun, and have no shame; I, too, must disencumber myself of shame: and first, will you tell me whether you include itching and scratching, provided you have enough of them and pass your life in scratching, in your no- tion of happiness?

CALLICLES: I answer, that even the scratcher would live pleasantly. SOCRATES: And if pleasantly, then also happily? CALLICLES: To be sure. SOCRATES: But what if the itching is not confined to the head? Shall I pursue the

question? And here, Callicles, I would have you consider how you would reply if conse- quences are pressed upon you, especially if in the last resort you are asked, whether the life of a catamite2 is not terrible, foul, miserable? Or would you venture to say, that they too are happy, if they only get enough of what they want?

CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of introducing such topics into the argument?

SOCRATES: Well, my fine friend, but am I the introducer of these topics, or he who says without any qualification that all who feel pleasure in whatever manner are happy, and who admits of no distinction between good and bad pleasures? And I would still ask, whether you say that pleasure and good are the same, or whether there is some pleasure which is not a good?

CALLICLES: Well, then, for the sake of consistency, I will say that they are the same. SOCRATES: You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will no longer be

a satisfactory companion in the search after truth, if you say what is contrary to your real opinion.

CALLICLES: Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would ask you to

consider whether pleasure, from whatever source derived, is the good; for, if this be true, then the disagreeable consequences which have been darkly intimated must follow, and many others.

CALLICLES: That, Socrates, is only your opinion. SOCRATES: And do you, Callicles, seriously maintain what you are saying? CALLICLES: Indeed I do. SOCRATES: Then, as you are in earnest, shall we proceed with the argument? CALLICLES: By all means. SOCRATES: Well, if you are willing to proceed, determine this question for me:—

There is something, I presume, which you would call knowledge? CALLICLES: There is. SOCRATES: And were you not saying just now, that some courage implied

knowledge? CALLICLES: I was. SOCRATES: And you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two things different

from one another? CALLICLES: Certainly I was. SOCRATES: And would you say that pleasure and knowledge are the same, or not the

same? CALLICLES: Not the same, O man of wisdom. SOCRATES: And would you say that courage differed from pleasure? CALLICLES: Certainly.

2 A catamite is the passive object of homosexual desire. The passivity of the catamite was associated with womanliness.

22 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

SOCRATES: Well, then, let us remember that Callicles says that pleasure and good are the same; but that knowledge and courage are not the same, either with one another, or with the good.

CALLICLES: And what does our friend Socrates say—does he assent to this, or not? SOCRATES: He does not assent; neither will Callicles, when he sees himself truly. You

will admit, I suppose, that good and evil fortune are opposed to each other? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And if they are opposed to each other, then, like health and disease, they

exclude one another; a man cannot have them both, or be without them both, at the same time?

CALLICLES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Take the case of any bodily affection:—a man may have the complaint in

his eyes which is called ophthalmia? CALLICLES: To be sure. SOCRATES: But he surely cannot have the same eyes well and sound at the same

time? CALLICLES: Certainly not. SOCRATES: And when he has got rid of his ophthalmia, has he got rid of the health of

his eyes too? Is the final result, that he gets rid of them both together? CALLICLES: Certainly not. SOCRATES: That would surely be marvelous and absurd? CALLICLES: Very. SOCRATES: I suppose that he is affected by them, and gets rid of them in turns? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And he may have strength and weakness in the same way, by fits? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Or swiftness and slowness? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And does he have and not have good and happiness, and their opposites,

evil and misery, in a similar alternation? CALLICLES: Certainly he has. SOCRATES: If then there be anything which a man has and has not at the same time,

clearly that cannot be good and evil—do we agree? Please do not answer without consideration.

CALLICLES: I entirely agree. SOCRATES: Go back now to our former admissions.—Did you say that to hunger, I

mean the mere state of hunger, was pleasant or painful? CALLICLES: I said painful, but that to eat when you are hungry is pleasant. SOCRATES: I know; but still the actual hunger is painful: am I not right? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And thirst, too, is painful? CALLICLES: Yes, very. SOCRATES: Need I adduce any more instances, or would you agree that all wants or

desires are painful? CALLICLES: I agree, and therefore you need not adduce any more instances. SOCRATES: Very good. And you would admit that to drink, when you are thirsty, is

pleasant? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And in the sentence which you have just uttered, the word ‘thirsty’ im-

plies pain? CALLICLES: Yes.

Chapter 1: Plato 23

SOCRATES: And the word ‘drinking’ is expressive of pleasure, and of the satisfaction of the want?

CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: There is pleasure in drinking? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: When you are thirsty? SOCRATES: And in pain? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Do you see the inference:—that pleasure and pain are simultaneous,

when you say that being thirsty, you drink? For are they not simultaneous, and do they not affect at the same time the same part, whether of the soul or the body?—which of them is affected cannot be supposed to be of any consequence: Is not this true?

CALLICLES: It is. SOCRATES: You said also, that no man could have good and evil fortune at the same

time? CALLICLES: Yes, I did. SOCRATES: But you admitted, that when in pain a man might also have pleasure? CALLICLES: Clearly. SOCRATES: Then pleasure is not the same as good fortune, or pain the same as evil

fortune, and therefore the good is not the same as the pleasant? CALLICLES: I wish I knew, Socrates, what your quibbling means. SOCRATES: You know, Callicles, but you pretend not to know. CALLICLES: Well, get on, and don’t keep fooling: then you will know what a wise guy

you are in your admonition of me. SOCRATES: Does not a man cease from his thirst and from his pleasure in drinking at

the same time? CALLICLES: True. SOCRATES: And if he is hungry, or has any other desire, does he not cease from the

desire and the pleasure at the same moment? CALLICLES: Very true. SOCRATES: Then he ceases from pain and pleasure at the same moment? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: But he does not cease from good and evil at the same moment, as you

have admitted: do you still adhere to what you said? CALLICLES: Yes, I do; but what is the inference? SOCRATES: Why, my friend, the inference is that the good is not the same as the

pleasant, or the evil the same as the painful; there is a cessation of pleasure and pain at the same moment; but not of good and evil, for they are different. How then can pleasure be the same as good, or pain as evil? . . . Well, then . . . may I assume that some pleasures are good and others evil?

CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: The beneficial are good, and the hurtful are evil? CALLICLES: To be sure. SOCRATES: And the beneficial are those which do some good, and the hurtful are

those which do some evil? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Take, for example, the bodily pleasures of eating and drinking, which we

were just now mentioning—you mean to say that those which promote health, or any other bodily excellence, are good, and their opposites evil?

CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And in the same way there are good pains and there are evil pains? CALLICLES: To be sure.

24 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

SOCRATES: And ought we not to choose and use the good pleasures and pains? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But not the evil? CALLICLES: Clearly. SOCRATES: Because, if you remember, Polus and I have agreed that all our actions

are to be done for the sake of the good;—and will you agree with us in saying, that the good is the end of all our actions, and that all our actions are to be done for the sake of the good, and not the good for the sake of them?—will you add a third vote to our two?

CALLICLES: I will. SOCRATES: Then pleasure, like everything else, is to be sought for the sake of that

which is good, and not that which is good for the sake of pleasure? CALLICLES: To be sure. SOCRATES: But can every man choose what pleasures are good and what are evil, or

must he have art or knowledge of them in detail? CALLICLES: He must have art. SOCRATES: . . . Seeing that you and I have agreed that there is such a thing as good,

and that there is such a thing as pleasure, and that pleasure is not the same as good, and that the pursuit and process of acquisition of the one, that is pleasure, is different from the pursuit and process of acquisition of the other, which is good—I wish that you would tell me whether you agree with me thus far or not—do you agree?

CALLICLES: I do . . . SOCRATES: Will not the good man, who says whatever he says with a view to the

best, speak with a reference to some standard and not at random; just as all other artists, whether the painter, the builder, the shipwright, or any other look all of them to their own work, and do not select and apply at random what they apply, but strive to give a definite form to it? The artist disposes all things in order, and compels the one part to harmonize and accord with the other part, until he has constructed a regular and systematic whole; and this is true of all artists, and in the same way the trainers and physicians give order and regularity to the body: do you deny this?

CALLICLES: No; I am ready to admit it. SOCRATES: Then the house in which order and regularity prevail is good; that in

which there is disorder, evil? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the same is true of a ship? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the human body? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what would you say of the soul? Will the good soul be that in which

disorder is prevalent, or that in which there is harmony and order? CALLICLES: The latter follows from our previous admissions. SOCRATES: What is the name which is given to the effect of harmony and order in the

body? CALLICLES: I suppose that you mean health and strength? SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and what is the name which you would give to the effect of har-

mony and order in the soul? Try and discover a name for this as well as for the other. CALLICLES: Why not give the name yourself, Socrates? SOCRATES: Well, if you had rather that I should, I will; and you shall say whether you

agree with me, and if not, you shall refute and answer me. ‘Healthy,’ as I conceive, is the name which is given to the regular order of the body, from which comes health and every other bodily excellence: is that true or not?

CALLICLES: True.

Chapter 1: Plato 25

SOCRATES: And ‘lawful’ and ‘law’ are the names which are given to the regular order and action of the soul, and these make men lawful and orderly:—and so we have modera- tion and justice: have we not?

CALLICLES: Granted . . . SOCRATES: . . . Listen to me, then, while I recapitulate the argument:—is the pleasant

the same as the good? Not the same. Callicles and I are agreed about that. And is the pleasant to be pursued for the sake of the good? or the good for the sake of the pleasant? The pleasant is to be pursued for the sake of the good . . . And we are good, and all good things whatever are good when some virtue is present in us or them? That, Callicles, is my conviction. But the virtue of each thing, whether body or soul, instrument or creature, when given to them in the best way comes to them not by chance but as the result of the order and truth and art which are imparted to them: Am I not right? I maintain that I am. And is not the virtue of each thing dependent on order or arrangement? Yes, I say. And that which makes a thing good is the proper order inhering in each thing? Such is my view. And is not the soul which has an order of her own better than that which has no order? Certainly. And the soul which has order is orderly? Of course. And that which is orderly is moderate? As- suredly. And the moderate soul is good? No other answer can I give, Callicles dear; have you any?

CALLICLES: Go on, my good fellow. SOCRATES: Then I shall proceed to add, that if the moderate soul is the good soul,

the soul which is in the opposite condition, that is, the foolish and intemperate, is the bad soul.

CALLICLES: Very true. SOCRATES: And will not the moderate man do what is proper, both in relation to the

gods and to men;—for he would not be moderate if he did not? Certainly he will do what is proper. In his relation to other men he will do what is just; and in his relation to the gods he will do what is holy; and he who does what is just and holy must be just and holy? Very true. And must he not be courageous? for the duty of a moderate man is not to follow or to avoid what he ought not, but what he ought, whether things or men or pleasures or pains, and patiently to endure when he ought; and therefore, Callicles, the moderate man, being, as we have described, also just and courageous and holy, cannot be other than a perfectly good man, nor can the good man do otherwise than well and perfectly whatever he does; and he who does well must of necessity be happy and blessed, and the evil man who does evil, miserable: now this latter is he whom you were applauding—the intemperate who is the op- posite of the moderate. Such is my position, and these things I affirm to be true. And if they are true, then I further affirm that he who desires to be happy must pursue and practice moderation and run away from intemperance as fast as his legs will carry him: he had bet- ter order his life so as not to need punishment; but if either he or any of his friends, whether private individual or city, are in need of punishment, then justice must be done and he must suffer punishment, if he would be happy. This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought to have, and towards which he ought to direct all the energies both of himself and of the city, acting so that he may have moderation and justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire satisfy them lead- ing a robber’s life. Such a one is the friend neither of God nor man, for he is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is also incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and orderliness and modera- tion and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe is therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my friend . . .

Chapter 2

Epicurus

SECTION 1 Epicurus begins his exposition of hedonism with a particular cosmology—that is, with a com- prehensive and rational account of the ultimate nature of the cosmos, or universe. The cosmology we speak of is called atomism, which comes from the ancient Greek word atomos, meaning “un- cuttable” or “indivisible.” According to atomism, the universe (and everything in it) is composed of an infinite number of atoms combining and separating in the infinite void. Atoms are the most basic building blocks of reality. They are eternal—they are neither created nor can they ever be de- stroyed. Thus it makes no sense to ask “where did the atoms come from?” or “why does anything exist at all?” Atoms do not come from anywhere, since they have always existed and always will exist.

Epicurus believes that atomism is the most common-sense approach to understanding reality. The fact that there are only material things, or bodies, is confirmed by the experience of all men. It is impossible, he says, to even conceive of anything besides bodies and the empty space (void) through which those bodies move. Now it is true that many people believe in incorporeal (i.e., non-bodily) souls, not to mention angels and gods. But Epicurus finds this belief rather silly, since our senses do not allow us to perceive anything that is not a body. In fact, even when we try to imagine angels and gods, we invest them with a human shape or form, as if they were some kind of spiritual body, which is a contradiction in terms (because to be a real, existing being, it must have the power of acting and being acted upon, and only corporeal beings are capable of this). No, says Epicurus, the only real beings are material things. (From this observation he makes the logical deduc- tion that if you divide bodies into halves you will at some point reach a body that is so simple that it can no longer be divided into anything smaller—this is the atom.) Everything else (immaterial gods, souls, angels, demons, spirits, etc.) is the product of our vivid imaginations. The sooner we realize this, the better off we will all be.

There are two types of bodies: compounds, which are clusters of two or more atoms, and then the actual atoms out of which those compounds are formed. As we pointed out already, the atoms are indestructible. The constellations of atoms, or compounds, on the other hand, are not

28 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

indestructible: at some point they will cease to exist as particular compounds. Let us use you as an example: You, as a human being, are a highly complex bundle of, perhaps, trillions of atoms ar- ranged in a particular configuration. But you have not always been such as you are now. At some point you did not exist: the atoms that now make up your body existed somewhere else in nature (perhaps in the plants and animals your parents used for food around the time of your conception). Then you were born. You went through childhood and adolescence, and now you are in adulthood. Eventually you will grow old, whither, and die, at which point the atoms that make up your body will disperse back into nature (worms will nibble away at your rotting corpse, then birds will con- sume the worms, and scavengers will consume the birds when they die, and so on). But what re- mains constant throughout this perpetual cycle of life and death is the eternal, indestructible atoms which make up the multiplicity of compound bodies inhabiting the natural world.

According to atomism, compounds are formed when atoms collide against one another and become hooked with one or more atoms to form a cluster. Those same clusters then combine with others to produce the enormous variety of substances we encounter in the world—from inanimate objects, such as rocks and minerals, all the way up to the wide gamut of animal species, including human beings. Ultimately, the many worlds that make up the cosmos, and even the cosmos itself, owe their existence to the chance collisions of an infinite number of atoms.

SECTION 2 Because Epicurus is an atomist, he regards every aspect of the human being, including the soul, as having a corporeal (or bodily) nature. Now what precisely, you might ask, is the human soul? Ac- cording to Epicurus, the soul is the power or faculty in us that makes possible not only sensation (hearing, sight, touch, smell, taste), but also thought itself, or reason. More generally, the soul is a kind of “life force” that “animates” (from the Latin anima, meaning soul) otherwise lifeless bodies. In other words, it is the soul that distinguishes living from non-living things. If your soul were to van- ish all of a sudden, you would be reduced to a lifeless corpse.

Epicurus claims that the soul, just like the body, is composed of atoms. But, whereas the human body is composed of densely packed clusters of relatively large, rough atoms, the soul is composed of exceedingly fine and smooth atoms, “resembling wind with a certain admixture of heat.” The soul atoms suffuse the entire bodily structure, from the top of the head to the tips of the toes and everything in-between. Think of the human being as a wet sponge: the sponge itself is the bodily structure (bones, tendons, tissues, organs, etc.) and the water within the sponge would be the soul atoms diffused throughout the body. Although the soul may be the organ of all perception and thought, it is important to recognize that the soul atoms can only make sensation possible when working in and through the rest of the body. In other words, the body by itself is incapable of pro- ducing sensation. The same holds true with respect to the soul atoms: both soul and body need to be working together if there is to be sensation.

This has major implications for Epicurus: for if death means the dissolution of the human body, which in turn involves the dispersal of the soul atoms, then there is no possibility of sensation post mortem. If Epicurus is right, then there is no afterlife, because when we die we lose consciousness forever. Death is deprivation of sensation, and nothing more. We no longer have to worry about going to Hell (nor can we anticipate going to Heaven, for that matter). For Epicurus, as we will see, this realization becomes the cornerstone of the highest state of being of which humans are capable: tranquility of soul.

Chapter 2: Epicurus 29

SECTIONS 3 AND 4 In these sections Epicurus seeks to repudiate divine providence, which refers to the gods’ sover- eign guidance and control of the cosmos. More specifically, divine providence is the belief that the gods sustain the natural order of the universe as well as intervene in human affairs by way of dis- pensing punishments and rewards both in this life and the next. According to Epicurus, the belief in divine retribution in some hellish afterlife is a source of the greatest fear and anxiety that a human being can experience, a fear which Epicurean philosophy is at great pains to dispel. As we saw in section 2, the atomistic cosmology makes an afterlife impossible: death is deprivation of sensation. In other words, when you die, your soul atoms disperse and you are no longer capable of having any kind of perception, feeling, or awareness. Death is like being in a deep, dreamless, eternal sleep. There is, therefore, no prospect of Hell to spend your days agonizing over. The realization that death is nothing at all to fear is supposed to give you a sense of calm, serenity, and tranquility.

Epicurus then attacks the notion of divine providence from another angle: it makes absolutely no sense, he argues, to believe that the gods govern the motions of the heavenly bodies (or that those heavenly bodies are themselves divine and hence move themselves) because no being that is truly divine (and therefore perfect, complete, independent, and self-sufficient) would ever take the trouble to engage in any of these activities, “for trouble and care and anger and kindness are not consistent with a life of blessedness, but these things come to pass where there is weakness and fear and dependence on neighbors.” The gods are, by definition, immortal, and they are neither weak nor do they depend on others for anything. Thus, to ascribe providential care to the gods is con- trary to the gods’ perfection and blessedness. It is to speak of the gods as if they were mortal like us. Not only is the belief in divine providence incorrect, but when it takes the form of hellfire and damnation in the afterlife, it becomes the cause of the greatest disturbance in men’s souls for which Epicurean philosophy is the cure.

SECTION 5 This is the clearest statement of the school of thought known as hedonism, or the view that the best life is one which is dedicated entirely to the pursuit of pleasure. According to this view, the good is identical with pleasure, and evil with pain. Now there are two basic kinds of hedonism, what one may call a vulgar hedonism and a more sophisticated, Epicurean hedonism. The former kind sees the pleasures of food, drink, and sex as the most choice-worthy goods in life. The latter recognizes that the pursuit of bodily gratifications will leave you with a surplus of pain in the long run. The glutton, the drunkard, and the sex addict all pursue bodily pleasures which are short but intense, yet they leave one bloated, hungover, and dissipated. The prudent man always takes action with an eye to the future, to the long-term pleasure. Indeed, not every pleasure is to be cho- sen, just as not every pain is to be avoided. Prudence dictates that some pleasures, like drunken- ness, ought to be avoided, just as some pains, like exercise, ought to be chosen. Only in this way can one achieve overall well-being.

SECTION 6 For Epicurus, the best, happiest, and most satisfying way for a human being to live is, in his own words, “to refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the soul’s freedom from disturbance . . .” As we discussed earlier, the latter aim is achieved through knowledge of the

30 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

cosmic order (i.e., atomism), which teaches us that death is the end of sensation, and, hence, that there is no afterlife in which we will be punished by wrathful gods. No less important than tranquil- ity of soul is bodily health. It goes without saying that people with healthy bodies experience far less pain and discomfort than people with unhealthy bodies. Our goal, then, should be to live in accor- dance with nature. But what does this mean? Epicurus classifies the different types of desires in the following way:

Natural desires Vain desires

1. Necessary desires Avoid these completely a. Necessary for happiness b. Necessary for repose of the body c. Necessary for survival

2. Merely natural desires

There are three possible causes of human misery: (1) fear, (2) vain desires (i.e., desires that do not fulfill any natural human need), and (3) unbridled desire.

One avoids fear by recognizing one’s own mortality. One avoids vain and unbridled desire by seeking to satisfy only those desires that are natural and necessary, meaning those desires which give rise to a sense of pain if they are not satisfied. We are talking about eliminating all desires which do not involve satisfying the most basic needs of the human organism (hydration, nourishment, sleep, protection from the elements, etc.). The goal is to simplify your life, as well as to become inde- pendent in all things. We live in an age when the good life is envisioned by many as a quest to ac- cumulate as much “stuff” as possible—a quest that does not cease until we expire. For Epicurus, this is the direct opposite of what a truly good and happy life requires. It will only add unlimited stress and anxiety, where the goal ought to be simplicity, tranquility, self-sufficiency, and independence.

SECTION 7 The human being is so constituted that bodily health and serenity of mind can be had rather cheaply, and thus the prudent person realizes that the truly good things in life are relatively easy to attain. As long as one pursues only the natural and necessary desires, and avoids the vain and un- necessary ones, a simple and happy life will be easily within reach. Furthermore, “chance” or “des- tiny” are not the cause of all things in life, but rather provide “opportunities for great good or great evil,” meaning that our happiness lies in the way we react to what life and the world present to us. For example, once we realize that even the acutest pain lasts only a short while, we will cease to be overcome by fear and anxiety. Adapting our minds and bodies to nature (properly understood as a materialistic universe wherein divine retribution does not exist and the needs of the body are easy to fulfill) will virtually guarantee a healthy, tranquil, and pleasant life.

SECTION 8 Epicurus was an early proponent of social contract theory, according to which justice is “a pledge of mutual advantage not to harm or be harmed.” Justice, like the other virtues, is valued not for its own sake, but rather for its usefulness in creating the conditions for human flourishing within a community.

The purpose of living in a society governed by laws is to protect members of that society from being harmed so that they may freely go about pursuing happiness. For this reason, laws that do not promote the common advantage are rightly deemed unjust. Of course, it is important to

Chapter 2: Epicurus 31

recognize that any genuine Epicurean would be very much disinclined to break his city’s laws for three reasons: (1) Because he knows how to reason correctly about his needs, he will not be tempted to engage in criminal activity for the sake of accumulating wealth, luxuries, or political power, pre- ferring instead to lead a peaceful, quiet existence. (2) As one who values serenity above all else, he will avoid anything that will bring him fear or anxiety, and lawbreakers are generally fearful of be- ing caught and punished. (3) Lastly, he will have a healthy respect for law and order, seeing in them the necessary precondition for his own pursuit of the good life. So it is that the pragmatic, self- interested Epicurean has no real incentive to commit injustice. Nevertheless, because not every member of society will embody the sober, restrained temperament of the Epicurean, there will al- ways have to be in place a penal system to help restrain the brutish impulses and unbridled appe- tites of the vulgar.

SECTIONS 9 AND 10 The surest way to provide for one’s safety and security, Epicurus tells us, is to escape the hustle and bustle of city life, with its myriad stresses and dangers, choosing instead to retire with a few like- minded friends to a simple, quiet life in the country.

Although there is no security against death, we can still experience deep satisfaction during the tiny interval we are given on this Earth by living simply and naturally, contemplating the cosmic order, and sharing the blessings of friendship.

Chapter 2: Epicurus 33

The Pleasant Life Epicurus

SECTION 1 Nothing is created out of that which does not exist: for if it were, everything would be cre- ated out of everything with no need of seeds. And again, if that which disappears were de- stroyed into that which did not exist, all things would have perished, since that into which they were dissolved would not exist. Furthermore, the universe always was such as it is now, and always will be the same. For there is nothing into which it changes: for outside the universe there is nothing which could come into it and bring about the change.

Moreover, the universe is bodies and space: for that bodies exist, sense itself witnesses in the experience of all men. . . . And if there were not that which we term void and place and intangible existence, bodies would have nowhere to exist and nothing through which to move, as they are seen to move. And besides these two nothing can even be thought of. . . . Furthermore, among bodies some are compounds, and others those of which com- pounds are formed. And these latter are indivisible and unalterable if, that is, all things are not to be destroyed into the nonexistent, but something permanent is to remain behind at the dissolution of compounds: they are completely solid in nature, and can by no means be dissolved in any part. So it must needs be that the first beginnings are indivisible corporeal existences. . . .

Moreover, we must suppose that the atoms do not possess any of the qualities belong- ing to perceptible things, except shape, weight, and size, and all that necessarily goes with shape. For every quality changes; but the atoms do not change at all, since there must needs be something which remains solid and indissoluble at the dissolution of compounds, which can cause changes; not changes into the nonexistent or from the nonexistent, but changes effected by the shifting of position of some particles, and by the addition or depar- ture of others. For this reason it is essential that the bodies which shift their position should be imperishable and should not possess the nature of what changes, but parts and configu- ration of their own. For thus much must needs remain constant. . . .

And the atoms move continuously for all time, some of them falling straight down, others swerving, and others recoiling from their collisions. And of the latter, some are borne on separating to a long distance from one another, while others again recoil and recoil, whenever they chance to be checked by the interlacing with others, or else shut in by atoms interlaced around them. For on the one hand the nature of the void which separates each atom by itself brings this about, as it is not able to afford resistance, and on the other hand the hardness which belongs to the atoms makes them recoil after collision to as great a distance as the interlacing permits separation after the collision.

From Epicurus: The Extant Remains translated by Bailey (1926) Circa 6030w from “The Pleasant Life.” By permis- sion of Oxford University Press.

34 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

SECTION 2 Next, referring always to the sensations and the feelings, for in this way you will obtain the most trustworthy ground of belief, you must consider that the soul is a body of fine particles distributed throughout the whole structure, and most resembling wind with a certain ad- mixture of heat, and in some respects like to one of these and in some to the other. There is also the part which is many degrees more advanced even than these in fineness of com- position, and for this reason is more capable of feeling in harmony with the rest of the structure as well. Now all this is made manifest by the activities of the soul and the feelings and the readiness of its movements and its processes of thought and by what we lose at the moment of death. Further, you must grasp that the soul possesses the chief cause of sensa- tion: yet it could not have acquired sensation, unless it were in some way enclosed by the rest of the structure. And this in its turn having afforded the soul this cause of sensation acquires itself too a share in this contingent capacity from the soul. Yet it does not acquire all the capacities which the soul possesses: and therefore when the soul is released from the body, the body no longer has sensation. For it never possessed this power in itself, but used to afford opportunity for it to another existence, brought into being at the same time with itself: and this existence, owing to the power now consummated within itself as a result of motion, used spontaneously to produce for itself the capacity of sensation and then to communicate it to the body as well, in virtue of its contact and correspondence of move- ment, as I have already said. Therefore, so long as the soul remains in the body, even though some other part of the body be lost, it will never lose sensation; nay more, whatever portions of the soul may perish too, when that which enclosed it is removed either in whole or in part, if the soul continues to exist at all, it will retain sensation. On the other hand, the rest of the structure, though it continues to exist either as a whole or in part, does not retain sensation, if it has once lost that sum of atoms, however small it be, which together goes to produce the nature of the soul. Moreover, if the whole structure is dissolved, the soul is dis- persed and no longer has the same powers nor performs its movements, so that it does not possess sensation either. For it is impossible to imagine it with sensation, if it is not in this organism and cannot effect these movements, when what encloses and surrounds it is no longer the same as the surroundings in which it now exists and performs these movements. Furthermore, we must clearly comprehend as well, that the incorporeal in the general ac- ceptation of the term is applied to that which could be thought of as much as an indepen- dent existence. Now it is impossible to conceive the incorporeal as a separate existence, except the void: and the void can neither act nor be acted upon, but only provides opportu- nity of motion through itself to bodies. So that those who say that the soul is incorporeal are talking idly. For it would not be able to act or be acted on in any respect, if it were of this nature. But as it is, both these occurrences are clearly distinguished in respect of the soul.

SECTION 3 Furthermore, the motions of the heavenly bodies and their turnings and eclipses and ris- ings and settings, and kindred phenomena to these, must not be thought to be due to any being who controls and ordains or has ordained them and at the same time enjoys perfect bliss together with immortality (for trouble and care and anger and kindness are not consis- tent with a life of blessedness, but these things come to pass where there is weakness and fear and dependence on neighbors). Nor again must we believe that they, which are but fire agglomerated in a mass, possess blessedness, and voluntarily take upon themselves these movements. But we must preserve their full majestic significance in all expressions which we apply to such conceptions, in order that there may not arise out of them opinions

Chapter 2: Epicurus 35

contrary to this notion of majesty. Otherwise this very contradiction will cause the greatest disturbance in men’s souls. Therefore we must believe that it is due to the original inclusion of matter in such agglomerations during the birth-process of the world that this law of regu- lar succession is also brought about.

Furthermore, we must believe that to discover accurately the cause of the most essen- tial facts is the function of the science of nature, and that blessedness for us in the knowl- edge of celestial phenomena lies in this and in the understanding of the nature of the exis- tences seen in these celestial phenomena, and of all else that is akin to the exact knowledge requisite for our happiness . . . nothing which suggests doubt or alarm can be included at all in that which is naturally immortal and blessed. Now this we can ascertain by our mind is absolutely the case. . . .

And besides all these matters in general we must grasp this point, that the principal disturbance in the minds of men arises because they think that these celestial bodies are blessed and immortal, and yet have wills and actions and motives inconsistent with these attributes; and because they are always expecting or imagining some everlasting misery, such as is depicted in legends, or even fear the loss of feeling in death as though it would concern them themselves; and, again, because they are brought to this pass not by rea- soned opinion, but rather by some irrational presentiment, and therefore, as they do not know the limits of pain, they suffer a disturbance equally great or even more extensive than if they had reached this belief by opinion. But peace of mind is being delivered from all this, and having a constant memory of the general and most essential principles.

Wherefore we must pay attention to internal feelings and to external sensations in gen- eral and in particular; according as the subject is general or particular, and to every imme- diate intuition in accordance with each of the standards of judgment. For if we pay attention to these, we shall rightly trace the causes whence arose our mental disturbance and fear, and, by learning the true causes of celestial phenomena and all other occurrences that come to pass from time to time, we shall free ourselves from all which produces the utmost fear in other men.

SECTION 4 First of all believe that God is a being immortal and blessed, even as the common idea of a god is engraved on men’s minds, and do not assign to him anything alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness: but believe about him everything that can uphold his bless- edness and immortality. For gods there are, since the knowledge of them is by clear vision. But they are not such as the many believe them to be: for indeed they do not consistently represent them as they believe them to be. And the impious man is not he who denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many. For the state- ments of the many about the gods are not conceptions derived from sensation, but false suppositions, according to which the greatest misfortunes befall the wicked and the great- est blessings the good by the gift of the gods. For men being accustomed always to their own virtues welcome those like themselves, but regard all that is not of their nature as alien. . . .

The blessed and immortal nature knows no trouble itself nor causes trouble to any other, so that it is never constrained by anger or favor. For all such things exist only in the weak. . . .

Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us. For all good and evil consists in sensation, but death is deprivation of sensation. And therefore a right under- standing that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality. For there is nothing terrible in life for the man who has truly comprehended that there is

36 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

nothing terrible in not living. So that the man speaks but idly who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when it comes, but because it is painful in anticipation. For that which gives no trouble when it comes is but an empty pain in anticipation. So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more.

But the many at one moment shun death as the greatest of evils, at another yearn for it as a respite from the evils in life. But the wise man neither seeks to escape life nor fears the cessation of life, for neither does life offend him nor does the absence of life seem to be any evil. And just as with food he does not seek simply the larger share and nothing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant.

SECTION 5 Since pleasure is the first good and natural to us, for this very reason we do not choose every pleasure, but sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater discomfort ac- crues to us as the result of them: and similarly we think many pains better than pleasures, since a greater pleasure comes to us when we have endured pains for a long time. Every pleasure then because of its natural kinship to us is good, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen: even as every pain also is an evil, yet not all are always of a nature to be avoided. Yet by a scale of comparison and by the consideration of advantages and disadvantages we must form our judgment on all these matters. For the good on certain occasions we treat as bad, and conversely the bad as good. . . .

No one when he sees evil deliberately chooses it, but is enticed by it as being good in comparison with a greater evil and so pursues it.

SECTION 6 We must consider that of desires some are natural, others vain, and of the natural some are necessary and others merely natural; and of the necessary some are necessary for happi- ness, others for the repose of the body, and others for very life. . . .

Unhappiness comes either through fear or through vain and unbridled desire: but if a man curbs these, he can win for himself the blessedness of understanding. . . . Of desires, all that do not lead to a sense of pain, if they are not satisfied, are not necessary, but involve a craving which is easily dispelled, when the object is hard to procure or they seem likely to produce harm. . . . Wherever in the case of desires which are physical [natural], but do not lead to a sense of pain, if they are not fulfilled, the effort is intense, such pleasures are due to idle imagination, and it is not owing to their own nature that they fail to be dispelled, but owing to the empty imaginings of the man. . . .

The disturbance of the soul cannot be ended nor true joy created either by the posses- sion of the greatest wealth or by honor and respect in the eyes of the mob or by anything else that is associated with causes of unlimited desires. . . . We must not violate nature, but obey her; and we shall obey her if we fulfill the necessary desires and also the physical [natural], if they bring no harm to us, but sternly reject the harmful. . . . The man who fol- lows nature and not vain opinions is independent in all things. For in reference to what is enough for nature every possession is riches, but in reference to unlimited desires even the greatest wealth is not riches but poverty.

Insofar as you are in difficulties, it is because you forget nature; for you create for your- self unlimited fears and desires. It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than

Chapter 2: Epicurus 37

to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble. . . . Thanks be to blessed Nature because she has made what is necessary easy to supply, and what is not easy un- necessary. . . . The right understanding of these facts enables us to refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the soul’s freedom from disturbance, since this is the aim of the life of blessedness. For it is to obtain this end that we always act, namely, to avoid pain and fear. And when this is once secured for us, all the tempest of the soul is dis- persed, since the living creature has not to wander as though in search of something that is missing, and to look for some other thing by which he can fulfill the good of the soul and the good of the body. For it is then that we have need of pleasure, when we feel pain owing to the absence of pleasure; but when we do not feel pain, we no longer need pleasure. And for this cause we call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good.

SECTION 7 The justice which arises from nature is a pledge of mutual advantage to restrain men from harming one another and save them from being harmed.

For all living things which I have not been able to make compacts not to harm one another or be harmed, nothing ever is either just or unjust; and likewise too for all tribes of men which have been unable or unwilling to make compacts not to harm or be harmed.

Justice never is anything in itself, but the dealings of men with one another in any place whatever and at any time it is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

Injustice is not an evil in itself, but only in consequence of the fear which attaches to the apprehension of being unable to escape those appointed to punish such actions.

It is not possible for one who acts in secret contravention of the terms of the compact not to harm or be harmed, to be confident that he will escape detection, even if at present he escapes a thousand times. For up to the time of death it cannot be certain that he will indeed escape.

In its general aspect justice is the same for all, for it is a kind of mutual advantage in the dealings of men with one another: but with reference to the individual peculiarities of a country or any other circumstances the same thing does not turn out to be just for all.

Among actions which are sanctioned as just by law, that which is proved on examina- tion to be of advantage in the requirements of men’s dealings with one another, has the guarantee of justice, whether it is the same for all or not. But if a man makes a law and it does not turn out to lead to advantage in men’s dealings with each other, then it no longer has the essential nature of justice. And even if the advantage in the matter of justice shifts from one side to the other, but for a while accords with the general concept, it is none the less just for that period in the eyes of those who do not confound themselves with empty sounds but look to the actual facts.

Where, provided the circumstances have not been altered, actions which were consid- ered just have been shown not to accord with the general concept in actual practice, then they are not just. But where, when circumstances have changed, the same actions which were sanctioned as just no longer lead to advantage, there they were just at the time when they were of advantage for the dealings of fellow citizens with one another; but subse- quently they are no longer just, when no longer of advantage.

38 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

SECTION 8 To secure protection from men anything is a natural good, by which you may be able to attain this end.

Some men wished to become famous and conspicuous, thinking that they would thus win for themselves safety from other men. Wherefore if the life of such men is safe, they have obtained the good which nature craves; but if it is not safe, they do not possess that for which they strove at first by the instinct of nature. . . .

The most unalloyed source of protection from men, which is secured to some extent by a certain force of expulsion, is in fact the immunity which results from a quiet life and the retirement from the world. . . .

Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life, far the greatest is the possession of friendship.

The same conviction which has given us confidence that there is nothing terrible that lasts forever or even for long, has also seen the protection of friendship most fully com- pleted in the limited evils of this life. . . .

As many as possess the power to procure complete immunity from their neighbors, these also live most pleasantly with one another, since they have the most certain pledge of security.

SECTION 9 Some men throughout their lives gather together the means of life, for they do not see that the draught swallowed by all of us at birth is a draught of death. Against all else it is possi- ble to provide security, but as against death all of us mortals alike dwell in an unfortified city. . . .

[But] I have anticipated thee, Fortune, and entrenched myself against all thy secret at- tacks. And we will not give ourselves up as captives to thee or to any other circumstance; but when it is time for us to go, spitting contempt on life and on those who here vainly cling to it, we will leave life crying aloud in a glorious triumph-song that we have lived well. We must try to make the end of the journey better than the beginning, as long as we are jour- neying; but when we come to the end, we must be happy and content. . . .

Meditate therefore on these things and things akin to them night and day by yourself, and with a companion like to yourself, and never shall you be disturbed waking or asleep, but you shall live like a god among men. For a man who lives among immortal blessings is not like to a mortal being.

Chapter 3

Marcus Aurelius

PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND The composition of the Meditations is normally dated to the 170s—Marcus’s last decade. That this was a dark and stressful period for him can hardly be doubted. In the ten years between 169 and 179 he had to cope with constant fighting on the frontier, the abortive revolt of Cassius, and the deaths of his colleague Verus; his wife, Faustina; and others. Though he could hardly have antici- pated the century of turmoil that would follow his death, he may have suspected that his son and successor, Commodus, was not the man he hoped. That in these circumstances Marcus should have sought consolation in philosophy is only natural. But understanding what Marcus looked for from his philosophical studies requires a certain amount of orientation. To understand the Meditations in context, we must familiarize ourselves not only with Stoicism, the philosophical system that under- lies the work, but also with the role of philosophy in ancient life more generally.

Today philosophy is an academic discipline, one that few people other than professional phi- losophers would consider central to their everyday existence. While we may think of ourselves as having a “philosophy of life,” it bears little relation to what goes on in the philosophy departments of our universities. The careers of twentieth-century analytic philosophy often seem remote from what the American philosopher Thomas Nagel terms “mortal questions”: the problems involved in making ethical choices, constructing a just society, responding to suffering and loss, and coming to terms with the prospect of death. Indeed, most of us would be inclined to see these issues as the province of religion rather than philosophy.

For Marcus and his contemporaries, the situation was very different. Ancient philosophy cer- tainly had its academic side. Athens and other large cities had publicly financed chairs of philoso- phy, and professional philosophers taught, argued and wrote, as they do today. But philosophy also had a more practical dimension. It was not merely a subject to write or argue about, but one that was expected to provide a “design for living”—a set of rules to live one’s life by. This was a need not met by ancient religion, which privileged ritual over doctrine and provided little in the way of moral and ethical guidelines. Nor did anyone expect it to. That was what philosophy was for.

Philosophy in the modern sense is largely the creation of one man, the fifth-century B.C. Athe- nian thinker Socrates. But it is primarily in the Hellenistic period that we see the rise of philosophical

40 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

sects, promulgating coherent “belief systems” that an individual could accept as a whole and which were designed to explain the world in its totality. Of these Hellenistic systems the most im- portant, both for Romans in general and for Marcus in particular, was the Stoic school. The move- ment takes its name from the stoa (“porch” or “portico”) in downtown Athens where its founder, Zeno (332/3–262 B.C.), taught and lectured. Zeno’s doctrines were reformulated and developed by his successors, Cleanthes (331–232 B.C.) and Chrysippus (280–c, 206 B.C.). Chrysippus in particular was a voluminous writer, and it was he who laid the foundations for systematic Stoicism. This early “academic” Stoicism is the source of certain key terms and concepts that reappear frequently in the Meditations, and proper understanding of Marcus’s approach requires some familiarity with the system as a whole.

Stoicism

Of the doctrines central to the Stoic worldview, perhaps the most important is the unwavering con- viction that the world is organized in a rational and coherent way. More specifically, it is controlled and directed by an all-pervading force that the Stoics designated by the term logos. The term (from which English “logic” and the suffix “-logy” derive) has a semantic range so broad as to be almost untranslatable. At a basic level it designates rational, connected thought—whether envisioned as a characteristic (rationality, the ability to reason) or as the product of that characteristic (an intelligible utterance or a connected discourse). Logos operates both in individuals and in the universe as a whole. In individuals it is the faculty of reason. On a cosmic level it is the rational principle that gov- erns the organization of the universe. In this sense it is synonymous with “nature,” “Providence,” or “God.” (When the author of John’s Gospel tells us that “the Word”—logos—was with God and is to be identified with God, he is borrowing Stoic terminology.)

All events are determined by the logos, and follow in an unbreakable chain of cause and effect. Stoicism is thus from the outset a deterministic system that appears to leave no room for human free will or moral responsibility. In reality the Stoics were reluctant to accept such an arrangement, and attempted to get around the difficulty by defining free will as a voluntary accommodation to what is in any case inevitable. According to this theory, man is like a dog tied to a moving wagon. If the dog refuses to run along with the wagon he will be dragged by it, yet the choice remains his: to run or be dragged. In the same way, humans are responsible for their choices and actions, even though these have been anticipated by the logos and form part of its plan. Even actions which ap- pear to be—and indeed are—immoral or unjust advance the overall design, which taken as a whole is harmonious and good. They, too, are governed by the logos.

But the logos is not simply an impersonal power that governs and directs the world. It is also an actual substance that pervades that world, not in a metaphorical sense but in a form as concrete as oxygen or carbon. In its physical embodiment, the logos exists as pneuma, a substance imagined by the earliest Stoics as pure fire, and by Chrysippus as a mixture of fire and air. Pneuma is the power— the vital breath—that animates animals and humans. It is, in Dylan Thomas’s phrase, “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower,” and is present even in lifeless materials like stone or metal as the energy that holds the object together—the internal tension that makes a stone a stone. All objects are thus a compound of lifeless substance and vital force. When Marcus refers, as he does on a number of occasions, to “cause and material” he means the two elements of these compounds— inert substance and animating pneuma—which are united so long as the object itself exists. When the object perishes, the pneuma that animated it is reabsorbed into the logos as a whole. This pro- cess of destruction and reintegration happens to individual objects at every moment. It also hap- pens on a larger scale to the entire universe, which at vast intervals is entirely consumed by fire (a process known as ekpyrosis), and then regenerated.

If the world is indeed orderly, if the logos controls all things, then the order it produces should be discernible in all aspects of it. That supposition not only led the Stoics to speculate about the nature of the physical world but also motivated them to seek the rationality characteristic of the

Chapter 3: Marcus Aurelius 41

logos in other areas, notably in formal logic and the nature and structure of language (their interest in etymology is reflected in several entries in the Meditations). This systematizing impulse reappears in many other fields as well. The catalogue of Chrysippus’s own works preserved by the late-third- century biographer Diogenes Laertius is very long indeed; it includes not only philosophical trea- tises in a narrow sense, but also works such as “On How to Read Poetry” and “Against the Touching Up of Paintings.” Later Stoics would try their hands at history and anthropology as well as more conventionally philosophical topics.

The expansion of Stoic thought was not only intellectual but also geographical. The movement had been born in Athens. In the century and a half that followed Chrysippus’s death it spread to other centers, in particular to Rome. The Romans of the second century B.C. were in the midst of a course of conquest that by the end of the century would leave them the effective masters of the Mediterranean. With conquest came culture. Looking back on the rapid Hellenization of the Ro- man aristocracy between 200 B.C. and his own day, the poet Horace famously observed that “con- quered Greece was the true conqueror.” Nowhere is the influence of Greece more obvious than in philosophy. Greek philosophers, including the Stoics, Panaetius (c. 185–109 B.C.), and Posidonius (c. 135–50 B.C.), visited Rome to lecture. Many spent extended periods there. In the first century B.C. it became the fashion for young upper-class Romans to study in Athens, in an ancient version of the eighteenth-century Grand Tour. Roman aristocrats acted as patrons to individual philosophers and assembled large libraries of philosophical texts (like that at the famous Villa of the Papyri at Hercu- laneum), and Romans like Cicero and Lucretius attempted to expound Greek philosophical doc- trines in Latin.

Of the major philosophical schools, it was Stoicism that had the greatest appeal. Unlike some other sects, the Stoics had always approved of participation in public life, and this stand struck a chord with the Roman aristocracy, whose code of values placed a premium on political and military activity. Stoicism has even been described, not altogether unfairly, as the real religion of upper-class Romans. In the process it became a rather different version of the philosophy from that taught by Zeno and Chrysippus. Perhaps the most important development was a shift in emphasis, a narrow- ing of focus. Early and middle Stoicism was a holistic system. It aimed to embrace all knowledge, and its focus was speculative and theoretical. Roman Stoicism, by contrast, was a practical disci- pline—not an abstract system of thought, but an attitude to life. Partly for historical reasons, it is this Romanized Stoicism that has most influenced later generations. Indeed, the application of the adjective “stoic” to a person who shows strength and courage in misfortune probably owes more to the aristocratic Roman value system than it does to Greek philosophers.

Stoicism in its later form was a system inspired as much by individuals as by texts or doctrines. One of its most distinguished adherents was Marcus Cato (known as Cato the Younger to distin- guish him from his great-grandfather, prominent a century earlier). A senator of renowned rectitude when Julius Caesar marched on Rome in 49 B.C., Cato sided with Caesar’s rival Pompey in defense of the legitimate government. When it was clear that Caesar would triumph, Cato chose not to sur- vive the Republic, killing himself after the battle of Munda in 46. Within a century he had become an emblem of Stoic resistance to tyranny. Under Nero he was immortalized by the poet Lucan and praised in a laudatory biography by the senator Thrasea Paetus, whose own resistance to Nero cost him his life. Thrasea’s son-in-law, Helvidius Priscus, played a similar role—and came to a similar end—under Vespasian. Thrasea and Helvidius in their turn served as role models to second-century aristocrats like Marcus’s mentors Rusticus, Maximus, and Severus. Marcus himself pays tribute to them (and to Cato) in Meditations 1.14.

Cato, Thrasea, and Helvidius were doers, not writers, and their legendary heroism inevitably lends them a somewhat two-dimensional quality. A more complex and much more interesting fig- ure was the poet Lucan’s uncle, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 B.C.–A.D. 65), commonly known as Seneca the Younger to distinguish him from his equally distinguished father. Originally councillor to the young Nero, he was eventually forced to commit suicide after being implicated in an attempted coup against his erstwhile pupil. Men’s lives are not always consistent with their ideals, and some

42 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

critics have found it hard to reconcile Seneca’s fabulous wealth and his shameless flattery of Nero with his philosophical views. Yet his works (in particular the Letters to Lucilius) remain the most en- gaging and accessible expressions of later Stoicism. Because they were written in Latin they were also among the most influential on succeeding generations.

But not all Stoics were wealthy senators. There was another kind of Stoic exemplar as well: the outsider whose ascetic lifestyle won him the admiration of his wealthier contemporaries and en- abled him to criticize the pretenses of upper-class society with real authority. An early example of the type is Gaius Musonius Rufus (c. 30–100), a member of the Roman administrative class, the so- called knights (equites), who was banished by both Nero and Vespasian. A still more dramatic ex- ample was Musonius’s student Epictetus (c. 55–c. 135), who had taken up the practice of philoso- phy as a slave and devoted the remainder of his life to it after being freed. He had been exiled to Nicopolis (in northern Greece) under Domitian, and after the tyrant’s death, elected to remain there where he taught and lectured to visitors who often traveled great distances to study with him.

One of these was the upper-class historian and statesman Arrian (c. 86–160), who published an extensive record of the master’s discussions, a text conventionally referred to as the Discourses of Epictetus. He later produced an abridged version, the Encheiridion (“Manual” or “Handbook”). Epictetus seems to have been an especially important figure for Marcus. He thanks his philosophical mentor Rusticus for introducing him to “Epictetus’s lectures” (either the Discourses themselves or a private set of lecture notes), and a series of quotations and paraphrases from the philosopher appear in Book 11 of the Meditations. And Arrian’s abridged Encheiridion provides the closest literary parallel to the Meditations itself, not only in its content, but also in its form: a series of relatively short and unrelated entries.

Stoicism and the Meditations

The late Stoicism of Epictetus is a radically stripped-down version of its Hellenistic predecessor, a philosophy which “had learnt much from its competitors and had almost forgotten parts of itself.” Both, these tendencies, the narrowing of the field and the eclectic borrowing from non-Stoic sources, can be discerned also in the Meditations.

Chrysippus and his followers had divided knowledge into three areas: logic, physics and ethics, concerned, respectively, with the nature of knowledge, the structure of the physical world and the proper role of human beings in that world. Marcus pays lip service to this triadic division in at least one entry (8.13), but it is clear from other chapters and from the Meditations as a whole that logic and physics were not his focus. Among the things for which he thanks the gods is that he was never “absorbed by logic-chopping, or preoccupied by physics” (1.17). Occasional entries show an aware- ness of Stoic thought about language (the etymological pun in 8.57 is perhaps the clearest exam- ple), but they are the exception, not the rule. In many cases Marcus’s logic is weak—the logic of the rhetorician, not of the philosopher; it is rare to find a developed chain of reasoning like that in Medi- tations 4.4. His interest in the nature of the physical world is limited to its relevance to human prob- lems. About one of the basic Stoic physical doctrines—the notion of the periodic conflagration (ekpyrosis) that ends a cosmic cycle—Marcus adopts an agnostic position (though he was not alone in this). To him it was ethics that was the basis of the system: “just because you’ve abandoned your hopes of becoming a great thinker or scientist, don’t give up on attaining freedom, achieving hu- mility, serving others . . .” (7.67).

The questions that the Meditations tries to answer are primarily metaphysical and ethical ones: Why are we here? How should we live our lives? How can we ensure that we do what is right? How can we protect ourselves against the stresses and pressures of daily life? How should we deal with pain and misfortune? How can we live with the knowledge that someday we will no longer exist? It would be both pointless and impertinent to try to summarize Marcus’s responses; the influence of the Meditations on later readers springs in part from the clarity and insistence with which he ad- dresses these questions. It may be worthwhile, however, to draw attention to one pattern of thought

Chapter 3: Marcus Aurelius 43

that is central to the philosophy of the Meditations (as well as to Epictetus), and that has been identi- fied and documented in detail by Pierre Hadot. This is the doctrine of the three “disciplines”: the disciplines of perception, of action and of the will.

The discipline of perception requires that we maintain absolute objectivity of thought: that we see things dispassionately for what they are. Proper understanding of this point requires a brief in- troduction to the Stoic theory of cognition. We have seen that for the Stoics universal order is rep- resented by the logos. The logos infuses and is wielded by our hegemonikon (literally, “that which guides”), which is the intellective part of our consciousness. In different contexts it can approximate either “will” or “character” and it performs many of the functions that English speakers attribute to the brain or the heart. One of its primary functions is to process and assess the data we receive from our senses. At every instant the objects and events in the world around us bombard us with impres- sions. As they do so they produce a phantasia, a mental impression. From this the mind generates a perception (hypolepsis), which might best be compared to a print made from a photographic nega- tive. Ideally this print will be an accurate and faithful representation of the original. But it may not be. It may be blurred, or it may include shadow images that distort or obscure the original.

Chief among these are inappropriate value judgments: the designation as “good” or “evil” of things that in fact are neither good nor evil. For example, my impression that my house has just burned down is simply that—an impression or report conveyed to me by my senses about an event in the outside world. By contrast, my perception that my house has burned down and I have thereby suffered a terrible tragedy includes not only an impression, but also an interpretation im- posed upon that initial impression by my powers of hypolepsis. It is by no means the only possible interpretation, and I am not obliged to accept it. I may be a good deal better off if I decline to do so. It is, in other words, not objects and events but the interpretations we place on them that are the problem. Our duty is therefore to exercise stringent control over the faculty of perception, with the aim of protecting our mind from error.

The second discipline, that of action, relates to our relationship with other people. Human be- ings, for Marcus as for the Stoics generally, are social animals, a point he makes often (e.g., 5.16, 8.59, 9.1). All human beings possess not only a share of the logos but also the ability to use it (that is what makes us human and distinguishes us from other animals). But it would perhaps be more ac- curate to say that we participants in the logos, which is as much a process as a substance. Marcus himself more than once compares the world ruled by logos to a city in which all human beings are citizens, with all the duties inherent in citizenship. As human, beings we are part of nature, and our duty is to accommodate ourselves to its demands and requirements—”to live as nature requires,” as Marcus often puts it. To do this we must make proper use of the logos we have been allotted, and perform as best we can the functions assigned us in the master plan of the larger, cosmic logos, of which it is a part. This requires not merely passive acquiescence in what happens, but active coop- eration with the world, with fate and, above all, with other human beings. We were made, Marcus tells us over and over, not for ourselves but for others, and our nature is fundamentally unselfish. In our relationships with others we must work for their collective good, while treating them justly and fairly as individuals.

Marcus never defines what he means by justice, and it is important to recognize what the term implies and what it does not. All human beings have a share of the logos, and all have roles to play in the vast design that is the world. But this is not to say that all humans are equal or that the roles they are assigned are interchangeable. Marcus, like most of his contemporaries, took it for granted that human society was hierarchical, and this is borne out by the images he uses to describe it. Hu- man society is a single organism, like an individual human body or a tree. But the trunk of the tree is not to be confused with the leaves, or the hands and feet with the head. Our duty to act justly does not mean that we must treat others as our equals; it means that we must treat them as they deserve. And their deserts are determined in part by their position in the hierarchy. Stoicism’s em- phasis on the orderliness of the universe implies a similar orderliness and harmony in its parrs, and

44 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

part of its appeal to upper-class Romans may have been that it did not force its adherents to ask difficult questions about the organization of the society they lived in.

The third discipline, the discipline of will, is in a sense the counterpart to the second, the disci- pline of action. The latter governs our approach to the things in our control, those that we do; the discipline of will governs our attitude to things that are not within our control, those that we have done to us (by others or by nature). We control our own actions and are responsible for them. If we act wrongly, then we have done serious harm to ourselves (though not, it should be emphasized, to others, or to the logos). By contrast, things outside our control have no ability to harm us. Acts of wrongdoing by a human agent (torture, theft, or other crimes) harm the agent, not the victim. Acts of nature such as fire, illness, or death can harm us only if we choose to see them as harmful. When we do so, we question the benevolence and providence of the logos, and thereby degrade our own logos.

This, of course, we must not do. Instead we must see things for what they are (here the disci- pline of perception is relevant) and accept them, by exercising the discipline of will, or what Epicte- tus calls (in a phrase quoted by Marcus) “the art of acquiescence.” For if we recognize that all events have been foreseen by the logos and form part of its plan, and that the plan in question is unfailingly good (as it must be), then it follows that we must accept whatever fate has in store for us, however unpleasant it may appear, trusting that, in Alexander Pope’s phrase, “whatever is, is right.” This ap- plies to all obstacles and (apparent) misfortunes, and in particular to death—a process that we can- not prevent, which therefore does not harm us, and which accordingly we must accept willingly as natural and proper.

Together, the three disciplines constitute a comprehensive approach to life, and in various combinations and reformulations they underlie a large number of the entries in the Meditations. We see them laid out starkly and explicitly in Meditations 7.54:

Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option:

to accept this event with humility [will]; to treat this person as he should be treated [action]; to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in [perception].

We find the same triad rephrased and reordered in Meditations 9.6: “Objective judgment . . . Unselfish action . . . Willing acceptance . . . of all external events.”

And we find it in a more subtle form underlying Meditations 8.7:

“. . . progress for a rational mind means not accepting falsehood or uncertainty in its

perceptions, making unselfish actions its only aim, seeking and shunning only the things it

has control over, embracing what nature demands of it—the nature in which it participates,

as the leaf’s nature does in the tree’s.” A score of other entries could be cited. The almost obsessive repetition of these three points

suggests that they lie at the very heart of Marcus’s thought, and of his project in the Meditations.

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Meditations

BOOK FOUR

1. Our inward power, when it obeys nature, reacts to events by accommodating itself to what it faces—to what is possible. It needs no specific material. It pursues its own aims as circumstances allow; it turns obstacles into fuel. As a fire over- whelms what would have quenched a lamp. What’s thrown on top of the confla- gration is absorbed, consumed by it—and makes it burn still higher.

2. No random actions, none not based on underlying principles. 3. People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains.

You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like.

By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul. Especially if you have other things to rely on. An instant’s recollection and there it is: complete tranquility. And by tranquillity I mean a kind of harmony. So keep getting away from it all—like that. Renew yourself. But keep it brief and basic. A quick visit should be enough to ward off all <. . .> and send you back ready to face what awaits you. What’s there to complain about? People’s misbehavior? But take into consider- ation:

that rational beings exist for one another; that doing what’s right sometimes requires patience; that no one does the wrong thing deliberately; and the number of people who have feuded and envied and hated and fought and died and been buried.

. . . and keep your mouth shut. Or are you complaining about the things the world assigns you? But consider the two options: Providence or atoms. And all the arguments for seeing the world as a city. Or is it your body? Keep in mind that when the mind detaches itself and realizes its own nature, it no longer has anything to do with ordinary life—the rough and the smooth, either one. And remember all you’ve been taught—and accepted—about pain and pleasure. Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgot- ten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those ap- plauding hands. The people who praise us—how capricious they are, how arbitrary.

From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, translated by Gregory Hays, translation copyright © 2002 by Random House, Inc. Used by permission of Modern Library, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.

46 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The whole earth a point in space— and most of it uninhabited. How many people there will be to admire you, and who they are. So keep this refuge in mind; the back roads of your self. Above all, no strain and no stress. Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citi- zen, like a mortal. And among the things you turn to, these two: i. That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it.

Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. ii. That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist. Think of how many

changes you’ve already seen. “The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.”

4. If thought is something we share, then so is reason—what makes us reasoning beings. If so, then the reason that tells us what to do and what not to do is also shared. And if so, we share a common law. And thus, are fellow citizens. And fellow citizens of something. And in that case, our state must be the world. What other entity could all of human- ity belong to? And from it—from this state that we share—come thought and rea- son and law. Where else could they come from? The earth that composes me derives from earth, the water from some other element, the air from its own source, the heat and fire from theirs—since nothing comes from nothing, or returns to it. So thought must derive from somewhere else as well.

5. Death: something like birth, a natural mystery, elements that split and recombine. Not an embarrassing thing. Not an offense to reason, or our nature.

6. That sort of person is bound to do that. You might as well resent a fig tree for se- creting juice. (Anyway, before very long you’ll both be dead—dead and soon forgotten.)

7. Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.

8. It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you— inside or out.

9. It was for the best. So Nature had no choice but to do it. 10. That every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see.

Not just the right one overall, but right. As if someone had weighed it out with scales. Keep looking closely like that, and embody it in your actions: goodness—what de- fines a good person. Keep to it in everything you do.

11. Not what your enemy sees and hopes that you will, but what’s really there. 12. Two kinds of readiness are constantly needed: (i) to do only what the logos of au-

thority and law directs, with the good of human beings in mind; (ii) to reconsider your position, when someone can set you straight or convert you to his. But your

Chapter 3: Marcus Aurelius 47

conversion should always rest on a conviction that it’s right, or benefits others— nothing else. Not because it’s more appealing or more popular.

13. You have a mind? —Yes. Well, why not use it? Isn’t that all you want—for it to do its job?

14. You have functioned as a part of something; you will vanish into what produced you. Or be restored, rather. To the logos from which all things spring. By being changed.

15. Many lumps of incense on the same altar. One crumbles now, one later, but it makes no difference.

16. Now they see you as a beast, a monkey. But in a week they’ll think you’re a god— if you rediscover your beliefs and honor the logos.

17. Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you’re alive and able—be good.

18. The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. (Is this fair? Is this the right thing to do?) <. . .> not to be distracted by their darkness. To run straight for the finish line, unswerving.

19. People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remem- ber them will soon die too. And those after them in turn. Until their memory, passed from one to another like a candle flame, gutters and goes out. But suppose that those who remembered you were immortal and your memory undying. What good would it do you? And I don’t just mean when you’re dead, but in your own lifetime. What use is praise, except to make your lifestyle a little more comfortable? ✝ You’re out of step—neglecting the gifts of nature to hand on someone’s words in the future. ✝

20. Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to them- selves. Praise is extraneous. The object of praise remains what it was—no better and no worse. This applies, I think, even to “beautiful” things in ordinary life— physical objects, artworks. Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does—or truth, or kindness, or humility. Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by contempt? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one ad- mires it? Or gold, or ivory, or purple? Lyres? Knives? Flowers? Bushes?

21. If our souls survive, how does the air find room for them—all of them—since the beginning of time? How does the earth find room for all the bodies buried in it since the beginning of time? They linger for whatever length of time, and then, through change and de- composition, make room for others. So too with the souls that inhabit the air. They linger a little, and then are changed—diffused and kindled into fire, absorbed into the logos from which all things spring, and so make room for new arrivals. One possible answer. But we shouldn’t think only of the mass of buried bodies. There are the ones con- sumed, on a daily basis, by us and by other animals. How many are swallowed up

48 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

like that, entombed in the bodies of those nourished by them, and yet there is room for them all—converted into flesh and blood, transformed to air and fire. How is the truth of this determined? Through analysis: material and cause,

22. Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave with justice and see things as they are.

23. To the world: Your harmony is mine. Whatever time you choose is the right time. Not late, not early. To nature: What the turn of your seasons brings me falls like ripe fruit. All things are born from you, exist in you, return to you. The poet says “dear city of Cecrops . . .” Can’t you bring yourself to say “of Zeus”?

24. “If you seek tranquillity, do less.” Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the un- necessary actions that follow.

25. And then you might see what the life of the good man is like—someone content with what nature assigns him, and satisfied with being just and kind himself.

26. You’ve seen that. Now look at this. Don’t be disturbed. Uncomplicate yourself. Someone has done wrong . . . to himself. Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning. Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present—thought- fully, justly. Unrestrained moderation.

27. An ordered world or a mishmash. But still an order. Can there be order within you and not in everything else? In things so different, so dispersed, so intertwined?

28. Character: dark, womanish, obstinate. Wolf, sheep, child, fool, cheat, buffoon, salesman, tyrant.

29. Alien: (n.) one who doesn’t know what the world contains. Or how it operates. Fugitive: (n.) one who evades his obligations to others. Blind: (adj.) one who keeps the eyes of his mind shut tight. Poor: (adj.) requiring others; not having the necessities of life in one’s own possession. Rebel: (n.) one who is rebellious, one who withdraws from the logos of Nature be- cause he resents its workings. (It produced you; now it produces this.) Schismatic: (n.) one who separates his own soul from others with the logos. They should be one.

30. A philosopher without clothes and one without books. “I have nothing to eat,” says he, as he stands there half-naked, “but I subsist on the logos.” And with nothing to read, I subsist on it too.

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31. Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life—no one’s master and no one’s slave.

32. The age of Vespasian, for example. People doing the exact same things: marrying, raising children, getting sick, dying, waging war, throwing parties, doing business, farming, flattering, boasting, distrusting, plotting, hoping others will die, complain- ing about their own lives, falling in love, putting away money, seeking high office and power. And that life they led is nowhere to be found. Or the age of Trajan. The exact same things. And that life too—gone. Survey the records of other eras. And see how many others gave their all and soon died and decomposed into the elements that formed them. But most of all, run through the list of those you knew yourself. Those who worked in vain, who failed to do what they should have—what they should have remained fixed on and found satisfaction in. A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.

33. Words once in common use now sound archaic. And the names of the famous dead as well: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus . . . Scipio and Cato . . . Augustus . . . Hadrian and Antoninus, and . . . Everything fades so quickly, turns into legend, and soon oblivion covers it. And those are the ones who shone. The rest—”unknown, unasked-for” a minute after death. What is “eternal” fame? Emptiness. Then what should we work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to ac- cept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring.

34. Hand yourself over to Clotho voluntarily, and let her spin you into whatever she pleases.

35. Everything transitory—the knower and the known. 36. Constant awareness that everything is born from change. The knowledge that

there is nothing nature loves more than to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the ones that make plants or children? Go deeper.

37. On the verge of dying and still weighed down, still turbulent, still convinced exter- nal things can harm you, still rude to other people, still not acknowledging the truth: that wisdom is justice.

38. Look into their minds, at what the wise do and what they don’t. 39. Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you. Nor can the shifts and

changes in the world around you. —Then where is harm to be found? In your capacity to see it. Stop doing that and everything will be fine. Let the part of you that makes that judgment keep quiet even if the body it’s attached to is stabbed or burnt, or stinking with pus, or consumed by cancer. Or to put it another way: It needs to realize that what happens to everyone—bad and good alike—is neither good nor bad. That what happens in every life—lived naturally or not—is neither natural nor unnatural.

50 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

40. The world as a living being—one nature, one soul. Keep that in mind. And how everything feeds into that single experience, moves with a single motion. And how everything helps produce everything else. Spun and woven together.

41. “A little wisp of soul carrying a corpse.”—Epictetus. 42. There is nothing bad in undergoing change—or good in emerging from it. 43. Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past

us, and another follows and is gone. 44. Everything that happens is as simple and familiar as the rose in spring, the fruit in

summer: disease, death, blasphemy, conspiracy . . . everything that makes stupid people happy or angry.

45. What follows coheres with what went before. Not like a random catalogue whose order is imposed upon it arbitrarily, but logically connected. And just as what exists is ordered and harmonious, what comes into being betrays an order too. Not a mere sequence, but an astonishing concordance.

46. Remember Heraclitus: “When earth dies, it becomes water; water, air; air, fire; and back to the beginning.” “Those who have forgotten where the road leads.” “They are at odds with what is all around them”—the alldirecting logos. And “they find alien what they meet with every day.” “Our words and actions should not be like those of sleepers” (for we act and speak in dreams as well) “or of children copying their parents”—doing and saying only what we have been told.

47. Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow “or the day after.” Unless you were a complete coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was—what difference could it make? Now recognize that the differ- ence between years from now and tomorrow is just as small.

48. Don’t let yourself forget how many doctors have died, after furrowing their brows over how many deathbeds. How many astrologers, after pompous forecasts about others’ ends. How many philosophers, after endless disquisitions on death and im- mortality. How many warriors, after inflicting thousands of casualties themselves. How many tyrants, after abusing the power of life and death atrociously, as if they were themselves immortal. How many whole cities have met their end: Helike, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and countless others. And all the ones you know yourself, one after another. One who laid out another for burial, and was buried himself, and then the man who buried him—all in the same short space of time. In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash. To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it up without complaint. Like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.

49. To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it,

49a. —It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to

Chapter 3: Marcus Aurelius 51

anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it. Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate? Can you really call something a misfortune that doesn’t violate human nature? Or do you think something that’s not against nature’s will can violate it? But you know what its will is. Does what’s hap- pened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a per- son’s nature to fulfill itself? So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

50. A trite but effective tactic against the fear of death: think of the list of people who had to be pried away from life. What did they gain by dying old? In the end, they all sleep six feet under—Caedicianus, Fabius, Julian, Lepidus, and all the rest. They buried their contemporaries, and were buried in turn. Our lifetime is so brief. And to live it out in these circumstances, among these people, in this body? Nothing to get excited about. Consider the abyss of time past, the infinite future. Three days of life or three generations: what’s the difference?

51. Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension.

Chapter 4

St. Augustine

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE This present chapter deals with some of Augustine’s views on the practical life of man. He is not in- terested in theory or speculation for its own sake; Augustine’s wisdom is always eminently practical. He does not separate ethics from religious morality and spiritual life. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, with its fundamental naturalism, was quite unknown to Augustine. The return of the soul to its Source is a constant theme in Neoplatonic treatises, which Augustine had read. It never occurred to him to separate ethics from religion, however. Here as elsewhere, his insights are triggered by some innocent-looking text from Scripture. This is illustrated in our first selection, where the basic tenet of moral eudaimonism (that all men desire happiness) is enunciated—not from Plato or Aristotle but from a remark in the Psalms!

The over-all orientation of man’s life toward God as the perfect good is treated at great length in Book XIX of the City of God. Augustine there examines three types of finite goods (bodily, psychic and social), and argues that none of these could wholly satisfy man’s aspirations. It is an argument by exclusion, eventually leading to the conclusion that God is the only goal worthy of man’s efforts. The fitting end of human existence is a loving union with God. In various forms, this reasoning is also found in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (Book III), in Aquinas’ Summa contra Gentiles (Book III), and in many later ethical treatises.

A famous description of virtue runs through medieval treatises in moral theology and is called the Augustinian definition. Actually it was gathered in the twelfth century by Peter Lombard from several works of Augustine (mostly from On Free Choice, II, 19). The famous definition is this: “Virtue is a good quality of the mind, by which we live righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God works within us, but without us.” (For a discussion of it, see St. Thomas Aquinas, Dis- puted Questions on Virtues in General, article 2.) While the final form of this statement is not the work of Augustine, the thought is typically his. This may he verified in the second from last selection of this chapter.

Augustine’s approach to morality, and particularly to questions of religious perfection, is not legalistic. He frequently Speaks of the eternal law of God and of the moral law that is inscribed in the hearts of man. Moral conscience is an expression of this divinely implanted law of goodness

54 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

(Exp. on Psalm 57, 1; and On Order, II, 8, 25). However, he does not especially emphasize duties, ob- ligations, sanctions, and all the judicial trappings of some later moral theology. The selections be- low, on the precepts of love and on the diversities of local customs, illustrate how foreign to the mind of our author is legal quibbling.

The two passages dealing with telling lies exemplify his judgment on a particular moral prob- lem. Augustine’s definition of lying included the intention to deceive another person. (Thomas Aquinas’ definition excludes such an intention.) As a result, lying is always treated by Augustine as an interpersonal action, and he has the greatest difficulty in maintaining the view that he feels called upon to support: that all lies are morally evil. There are obviously some cases where a speaker intends to deceive another person for the real good of that person, or for some other important good. It is not evident that all such, deceptions are immoral. Later Catholic theology has modified Augustine’s definition and treated lying as a form of self-abuse—but has admitted that not all de- ceptions are lies. Augustine’s frank puzzlement on such a problem has aided others in their search for a better solution.

Augustine is also one of the pioneers in the development of religious exercises. The basic pat- tern of many later methods of advancing in spiritual perfection is forecast in Augustine’s description of seven stages of life in the human soul (On the Magnitude of the Soul, 33), Essentially, the move- ment of such exercises is triadic: withdrawal of psychic attention from the things of this world; con- centration on what is best within the soul; and a rising above the soul to focus Upon God as the transcendent Good. It is possible to see this pattern on a grand scale in many of the great Augustin- ian treatises, notably in the Confessions.

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ALL MEN DESIRE HAPPINESS1

But what is this? [V. 12] Blessed is the nation. Who would not rouse himself at hearing this? All men love happiness, and therefore men are unreasonable in wanting to be wicked with- out being unhappy. And whereas unhappiness is the inseparable companion of wicked- ness, these perverse folk not only want wickedness without unhappiness, which is an im- possibility, but they want to be wicked on purpose to avoid being unhappy. What do I mean by saying they want to be wicked on purpose to avoid being unhappy? Consider this point for a moment: in all the wickedness men commit, they always desire happiness. A man steals; you ask: “Why?” For hunger, for need. So he is wicked for fear of being unhappy, and all the more unhappy for being wicked. For the sake of driving away unhappiness and ob- taining happiness, all men do whatever they do, good or bad; they invariably, you see, want to be happy. Whether they lead a good life or a bad one, they want to be happy; but not all attain to what all desire. All wish to be happy; none will be so but those who wish to be good. And then, lo and behold, someone or other, although doing wrong, wants to be happy. How? With money, with silver and gold, with estates and farms, with houses and servants, with worldly magnificence, with fleeting and perishable honors. He wishes to find happiness in possessing something; well then, find out what you want to possess to be happy. When you attain to happiness, of course you will be better off than now that you are unhappy. But it is impossible for anything falling short of yourself to add to your happiness. You are a human being; whatever you covet as a source of happiness is inferior to yourself. Gold and silver and various material things, which you so eagerly long to obtain, to pos- sess, to enjoy, are of less value than yourself. You are more excellent, you are more impor- tant; and when you wish to be happy because you are unhappy undoubtedly you wish to be better off than you are. Certainly it is better to be happy than unhappy. You want to be bet- ter off than you are now; yet as means to that end you are seeking and searching for things inferior to yourself. Whatever you possess on earth is inferior to yourself. Every man wishes well to his friend thus, charging him in suchlike terms as these: “I hope you fare better,” “I hope to see you better off,” “I hope to have the joy of knowing you are better off,” What he wishes his friend is what he wants for himself. Now take a piece of trustworthy advice. You want to be better off; I know it, we all know it, we all want the same thing. Look for what is better than yourself, so that by that means you may become better off than you are.

Now consider heaven and earth: physical beauty must not so delight you that you want to find your happiness in it. What you are looking for is in the soul. You want to be happy; look for something better than your soul itself. Granted that there are these two things, namely, soul and body, then, since that which is called soul is the nobler of the two, your body can benefit through that which is superior, because the body is subject to the soul. Hence your body can benefit through your soul, so that when your soul is found just, your body also may hereafter become immortal. Through the enlightenment of your soul, your body earns incorruption; thus the nobler restores the integrity of the less noble. Hence if your body’s good is your soul because it is superior to your body, when you seek your own good, seek that which is better for your soul.

Now, what is your soul? Pay attention; otherwise perhaps despising your soul and es- teeming it some mean and worthless thing, you may be seeking yet more worthless things

1 On Psalm 32, Serm. 3, 15–16; trans. ACW 30, 130–133 From The Essential Augustine by Vernon J. Bourke, Editor. Copyright © 1974 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

56 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

to make your soul happy. In your soul is the image of God; the human mind contains that image. It received it and by stooping to sin defiled it. He comes to refashion it who had first of all fashioned it; for by the Word all things were made, and by the Word this image was stamped on it. The Word Himself came, so that we might hear from the Apostle: Be re- formed in the newness of your mind. [Rom. 12:2] It now remains for you, then, to seek out what is of better worth than your soul. What will that be, pray, except your God? You can find nothing of more worth than your own soul; for when your nature is perfected it will be equal to the angels. Higher indeed than this there is nothing save the Creator. Stretch up- wards towards Him, do not despair, do not say: “It is beyond me.” With greater reason is it beyond you to enjoy the gold which you possibly covet. Gold, even though you desire it, you may perhaps never possess; God you will possess as soon as you desire Him. For He came to you before you desired Him; when your will was turned away from Him He called you, when you had turned to Him He put fear into you, and when full of fear you made con- fession He consoled you. He who has given you all things, He who has brought you into being, He who gives sunlight to your fellow creatures, even to the wicked, who gives rain, fruits and fountains, life and health, and so many comforts—He holds back something for you which He gives only to yourself. What is it that He holds back for you, if not Himself? Look for anything better if you can find it; God keeps Himself for you. You moneygrubber, why are you gaping after heaven and earth? Better is He who has made heaven and earth; He it is whom you are to behold and possess.

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MAN’S GREATEST GOOD2

How then, according to reason, ought man to live? We all certainly desire to live happily; and there is no human being but assents to this statement almost before it is made. But the title happy cannot, in my opinion, belong either to him who has not what he loves, whatever it may be, or to him who has what he loves if it is hurtful, or to him who does not love what he has, although it is good in perfection. For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture, and one who has got what is not desirable is cheated, and one who does not seek for what is worth seeking for is diseased. Now in all these cases the mind cannot but be unhappy, and happiness and unhappiness cannot reside at the same time in one man; so in none of these cases can the man be happy. I find, then, a fourth case, where the happy life exists—when that which is man’s chief good is both loved and possessed. For what do we call enjoyment but having at hand the objects of love? And no one can be happy who does not enjoy what is man’s chief good, nor is there any one who enjoys this who is not happy. We must then have at hand our chief good, if we think of living happily.

We must now inquire what is man’s chief good, which of course cannot be anything inferior to man himself. For whoever follows after what is inferior to himself, becomes him- self inferior. But every man is bound to follow what is best. Wherefore man’s chief good is not inferior to man. Is it then something similar to man himself? It must be so, if there is nothing above man which he is capable of enjoying. But if we find something which is both superior to man, and can be possessed by the man who loves it, who can doubt that in seeking for happiness man should endeavor to reach that which is more excellent than the being who makes the endeavor? For if happiness consists in the enjoyment of a good than which there is nothing better, which we call the chief good, how can a man be properly called happy who has not yet attained to his chief good? or how can that be the chief good beyond which something better remains for us to arrive at? Such, then, being the chief good, it must be something which cannot be lost against the will. For no one can feel con- fident regarding a good which he knows can be taken from him, although he wishes to keep and cherish it. But if a man feels no confidence regarding the good which he enjoys, how can he be happy while in such fear of losing it?

Let us then see what is better than man. This must necessarily be hard to find, unless we first ask and examine what man is. I am not now called upon to give a definition of man. The question here seems to me to be—since almost all agree, or at least, which is enough, those I have now to do with are of the same opinion with me, that we are made up of soul and body—What is man? Is he both of these? or is he the body only, or the soul only? For although the things are two, soul and body, and although neither without the other could be called man (for the body would not be man without the soul, nor again would the soul be man if there were not a body animated by it), still it is possible that one of these may be held to be man, and may be called so. What then do we call man? Is he soul and body, as in a double harness, or like a centaur? Or do we mean the body only, as being in the service of the soul which rules it, as the word lamp denotes not the light and the case together, but only the case, yet it is on account of the light that it is so called? Or do we mean only the mind, and that on account of the body which it rules, as horseman means not the man and the horse, but the man only, and that as employed in ruling the horse? This dispute is not

2 Moral Behavior of the Catholic Church, 3–8; trans. Dods. From The Essential Augustine by Vernon J. Bourke, Editor. Copyright © 1974 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

58 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

easy to settle; or, if the proof is plain, the statement requires time. This is an expenditure of time and strength which we need not incur. For whether the name man belongs to both, or only to the soul, the chief good of man is not the chief good of the body; but what is the chief good either of both soul and body, or of the soul only, that is man’s chief good.

Now if we ask what is the chief good of the body, reason obliges us to admit that it is that by means of which the body comes to be in its best state. But of all the things which invigorate the body, there is nothing better or greater than the soul. The chief good of the body, then, is not bodily pleasure, not absence of pain, not strength, not beauty, not swift- ness, or whatever else is usually reckoned among the goods of the body, but simply the soul. For all the things mentioned the soul supplies to the body by its presence, and, what is above them all, life. Hence I conclude that the soul is not the chief good of man, whether we give the name of man to soul and body together, or to the soul alone. For as, according to reason, the chief good of the body is that which is better than the body, and from which the body receives vigor and life, so whether the soul itself is man, or soul and body both, we must discover whether there is anything which goes before the soul itself, in following which the soul comes to the perfection of good of which it is capable in its own kind. If such a thing can be found, all uncertainty must be at an end, and we must pronounce this to be really and truly the chief good of man.

If, again, the body is man, it must be admitted that the soul is the chief good of man. But clearly, when we treat of morals—when we inquire what manner of life must be held in order to obtain happiness—it is not the body to which the precepts are addressed, it is not bodily discipline which we discuss. In short, the observance of good customs belongs to that part of us which inquires and learns, which are the prerogatives of the soul; so, when we speak of attaining to virtue, the question does not regard the body. But if it follows, as it does, that the body which is ruled over by a soul possessed of virtue is ruled both better and more honorably, and is in its greatest perfection in consequence of the perfection of the soul which rightfully governs it, that which gives perfection to the soul will be man’s chief good, though we call the body man. For if my coachman, in obedience to me, feeds and drives the horses he has charge of in the most satisfactory manner, himself enjoying the more of my bounty in proportion to his good conduct, can any one deny that the good condition of the horses, as well as that of the coachman, is due to me? So the question seems to me to be not whether soul and body is man, or the soul only, or the body only, but what gives perfection to the soul; for when this is obtained, a man cannot but be either per- fect, or at least much better than in the absence of this one thing.

No one will question that virtue gives perfection to the soul. But it is a very proper subject of inquiry whether this virtue can exist by itself or only in the soul. Here again arises a profound discussion, needing lengthy treatment; but perhaps my summary will serve the purpose. God will, I trust, assist me, so that, notwithstanding our feebleness, we may give instruction on these great matters briefly as well as intelligibly. In either case, whether virtue can exist by itself without the soul, or can exist only in the soul, undoubtedly in the pursuit of virtue the soul follows after something, and this must be either the soul itself, or virtue, or something else. But if the soul follows after itself in the pursuit of virtue, it follows after a foolish thing; for before obtaining virtue it is foolish. Now the height of a follower’s desire is to reach that which he follows after. So the soul must either not wish to reach what it follows after, which is utterly absurd and unreasonable, or, in following after itself while foolish, it reaches the folly which it flees from. But if it follows after virtue in the desire to reach it, how can it follow what does not exist? or how can it desire to reach what it already possesses? Either, therefore, virtue exists beyond the soul, or if we are not allowed to give the name of virtue except to the habit and disposition of the wise soul, which can exist only in the soul, we must allow that the soul follows after something else in order that virtue may be

Chapter 4: St. Augustine 59

produced in itself; for neither by following after nothing, nor by following after folly, can the soul, according to my reasoning, attain to wisdom.

This something else then, by following after which the soul becomes possessed of vir- tue and wisdom, is either a wise man or God. But we have said already that it must be something that we cannot lose against our will. No one can think it necessary to ask whether a wise man, supposing we are content to follow after him, can be taken from us in spite of our unwillingness or our persistence. God then remains, in following after whom we live well, and in reaching whom we live both well and happily. If any deny God’s existence, why should I consider the method of dealing with them, when it is doubtful whether they ought to be dealt with at all? At any rate, it would require a different starting point, a different plan, a different investigation from what we are now engaged in. I am now addressing those who do not deny the existence of God, and who moreover allow that human affairs are not disregarded by Him. For there is no one, I suppose, who makes any profession of religion but will hold that divine Providence cares at least for our souls.

But how can we follow after Him whom we do not see? or how can we see Him, we who are not only men, but also men of weak understanding? For though God is seen not with the eyes but with the mind, where can such a mind be found as shall, while obscured by foolishness, succeed or even attempt to drink in that light? We must therefore have re- course to the instructions of those whom we have reason to think wise. Thus far argument brings us. For in human things reasoning is employed, not as of greater certainty, but as easier from use. But when we come to divine things, this faculty turns away; it cannot be- hold; it pants and gasps and burns with desire; it falls back from the light of truth and turns again to its wonted obscurity, not from choice but from exhaustion. What a dreadful catas- trophe is this, that the soul should be reduced to greater helplessness when it is seeking rest from its toil! So, when we are hasting to retire into darkness, it will be well that by the appointment of adorable Wisdom we should be met by the friendly shade of authority, and should be attracted by the wonderful character of its contents, and by the utterance of its pages which, like shadows, typify and attemper the truth.

What more could have been done for our salvation? What can be more gracious and bountiful than divine providence, which, when man had fallen from its laws, and, in just retribution for his coveting mortal things, had brought forth a mortal offspring, still did not wholly abandon him? For in this most righteous government, whose ways are strange and inscrutable, there is, by means of unknown connections established in the creatures sub- ject to it, both a severity of punishment and a mercifulness of salvation. How beautiful this is, how great, how worthy of God, in fine, how true, which is all we are seeking for, we shall never be able to perceive, unless, beginning with things human and at hand, and holding by the faith and the precepts of true religion, we continue without turning from it in the way which God has secured for us by the separation of the patriarchs, by the bond of the law, by the foresight of the prophets, by the witness of the apostles, by the blood of the martyrs, and by the subjugation of the Gentiles. From this point, then, let no one ask me for my opinion, but let us rather hear the oracles, and submit our weak inferences to the announce- ments of Heaven.

Let us see how the Lord Himself in the gospel has taught us to live; how, too, Paul the apostle—for the Manicheans dare not reject these Scriptures. Let us hear, O Christ, what chief end Thou dost prescribe to us; and that is evidently the chief end after which we are told to strive with supreme affection. “Thou shalt love,” He says, “the Lord thy God.” Tell me also, I pray Thee, what must be the measure of love; for I fear lest the desire enkindled in my heart should either exceed or come short in fervor. “With all thy heart,” He says. Nor is that enough. “With all thy soul.” Nor is it enough yet. “With all thy mind.” What do you wish more? I might perhaps wish more if I could see the possibility of more. What does Paul say

60 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

on this? “We know,” he says, “that all things issue in good to them that love God.” Let him, too, say what is the measure of love. “Who then,” he says, “shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or the sword?” We have heard, then, what and how much we must love; this we must strive after, and to this we must refer all our plans. The perfection of all our good things and our perfect good is God. We must neither come short of this nor go beyond it; the one is dangerous, the other impossible.

Chapter 4: St. Augustine 61

GOOD LOVE AND BAD LOVE3

The condition of man’s will is important. If it is perverse, then these emotions will be per- verse; but if the will is right, then they are not only blameless, they will even be praisewor- thy. In fact, the will is present in all feelings; indeed, they are all nothing but movements of will. For what are cupidity and joy but the will tending to consent to the objects that we do will? What are fear and sorrow but the will tending to dissent from the objects that we voli- tionally reject? And when we consent by inclining toward the objects that we will, that is cupidity; when we consent by taking pleasure in the objects that we will, then that is called joy. Similarly, when we dissent from something that has happened against our will, such a will-act is sorrow. In general then, depending on the diversity of things that are desired or rejected, as a man’s will is attracted or repelled, so is it changed or diverted into one or the other of these emotions. That is why the man who lives according to God and not according to man should be a lover of the good, and consequently he should hate the evil. Moreover, since no person is evil by nature, but whoever is evil is so because of a fault, he who lives according to God owes a perfect hatred to evil men: not that he should hate the man on account of his fault, nor love the fault because of the man, but he should hate the fault and love the man. For, when the fault is repaired, there will remain something that should be wholly loved and in no way hated.

. . . And so, right will is a good love and perverse will is evil love. Love, then, that yearns to possess what is loved is cupidity, and when it takes pleasure in its possession, that is joy; when it tries to avoid what is opposed to it, that is fear, and when it suffers the occurrence of such opposition, that is sorrow. Hence, these feelings are evil if the love is evil; they are good if it is good.

3 City of God, XIV, 6–7; trans. V.J.B. From The Essential Augustine by Vernon J. Bourke, Editor. Copyright © 1974 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

62 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

MORAL EVIL STEMS FROM BAD WILL4

If the further question be asked, What was the efficient cause of their evil will? there is none. For what is it which makes the will bad, when it is the will itself which makes the action bad? And consequently the bad will is the cause of the bad action, but nothing is the effi- cient cause of the bad will. For if anything is the cause, this thing either has or has not a will. If it has, the will is either good or bad. If good, who is so left to himself as to say that a good will makes a will bad? For in this case a good will would be the cause of sin; a most absurd supposition. On the other hand, if this hypothetical thing has a bad will. I wish to know what made it so; and that we may not go on forever, I ask at once, what made the first evil will bad? For that is not the first which was itself corrupted by an evil will, but that is the first which was made evil by no other will. For if it were preceded by that which made it evil, that will was first which made the other evil. But if it is replied, “Nothing made it evil; it al- ways was evil,” I ask if it has been existing in some nature. For if not, then it did not exist at all; and if it did exist in some nature, then it vitiated and corrupted it, and injured it, and consequently deprived it of good. And therefore the evil will could not exist in an evil na- ture, but in a nature at once good and mutable, which this vice could injure. For if it did no injury, it was no vice; and consequently the will in which it was, could not be called evil. But if it did injury, it did it by taking away or diminishing good. And therefore there could not be from eternity, as was suggested, an evil will in that thing in which there had been previously a natural good, which the evil will was able to diminish by corrupting it. If, then, it was not from eternity, who, I ask, made it? The only thing that can be suggested in reply is that something which itself had no will, made the will evil. I ask, then, whether this thing was superior, inferior, or equal to it? If superior, then it is better. How, then, has it no will, and not rather a good will? The same reasoning applies if it was equal; for so long as two things have equally a good will, the one cannot produce in the other an evil will. Then remains the supposition that that which corrupted the will of the angelic nature which first sinned, was itself an inferior thing without a will, But that thing, be it of the lowest and most earthly kind, is certainly itself good, since it is a nature and being, with a form and rank of its own in its own kind and order. How, then, can a good thing be the efficient cause of an evil will? How, I say, can good be the cause of evil? For when the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil—not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked. Therefore it is not an inferior thing which has made the will evil, but it is itself which has become so by wickedly and inordinately desiring an infe- rior thing.

4 City of God, XII, 6; trans. Dods. From The Essential Augustine by Vernon J. Bourke, Editor. Copyright © 1974 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

Chapter 4: St. Augustine 63

TWO PRECEPTS OF LOVE5

. . . But as this divine Master inculcates two precepts—the love of God and the love of our neighbor—and as in these precepts a man finds three things he has to love—God, himself, and his neighbor—and that he who loves God loves himself thereby, it follows that he must endeavor to get his neighbor to love God, since he is ordered to love his neighbor as him- self. He ought to make this endeavor in behalf of his wife, his children, his household, all within his reach, even as he would wish his neighbor to do the same for him if he needed it; and consequently he will be at peace or in well-ordered concord with all men, as far as in him lies. And this is the order of this concord, that a man in the first place injure no one, and in the second do good to every one he can reach. Primarily, therefore, his own house- hold are his care, for the law of nature and of society gives him readier access to them and greater opportunity of serving them. And hence the Apostle says, “Now, if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” This is the origin of domestic peace, or the well-ordered concord of those in the family who rule and those who obey. For they who care for the rest rule—the hus- band the wife, the parents the children, the masters the servants; and they who are cared for obey—the women their husbands, the children their parents, the servants their masters. But in the family of the just man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim journeying on to the celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe to others—not because they are proud of authority, but because they love mercy.

5 City of God, XIX, 14; trans. Dods. From The Essential Augustine by Vernon J. Bourke, Editor. Copyright © 1974 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

64 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

DOING GOOD TO BODY AND SOUL6

Man, then, as viewed by his fellow man, is a rational soul with a mortal and earthly body in its service. Therefore he who loves his neighbor does good partly to the man’s body, and partly to his soul. What benefits the body is called medicine; what benefits the soul, disci- pline. Medicine here includes everything that either preserves or restores bodily health. It includes, therefore, not only what belongs to the art of medical men, properly so called, but also food and drink, clothing and shelter, and every means of covering and protection to guard our bodies against injuries and mishaps from without as well as from within. For hun- ger and thirst, and cold and heat, and all violence from without, produce loss of that health which is the point to be considered.

Hence those who seasonably and wisely supply all the things requited for warding off these evils and distresses are called compassionate, although they may have been so wise that no painful feeling disturbed their mind in the exercise of compassion. No doubt the word compassionate implies suffering in the heart of the man who feels for the sorrow of another. And it is equally true that a wise man ought to be free from all painful emotion when he assists the needy, when he gives food to the hungry and water to the thirsty, when he clothes the naked, when he takes the stranger into his house, when he sets free the op- pressed, when, lastly, he extends his charity to the dead in giving them burial. Still the epi- thet compassionate is a proper one, although he acts with tranquillity of mind, not from the stimulus of painful feeling, but from motives of benevolence. There is no harm in the word compassionate when there is no passion in the case.

Fools, again, who avoid the exercise of compassion as a vice, because they are not sufficiently moved by a sense of duty without feeling also distressful emotion, are frozen into hard insensibility, which is very different from the calm of a rational serenity. God, on the other hand, is properly called compassionate; and the sense in which He is so will be understood by those whom piety and diligence have made fit to understand. There is a dan- ger lest, in using the words of the learned, we harden the souls of the unlearned by leading them away from compassion instead of softening them with the desire of a charitable dis- position. As compassion, then, requires us to ward off these distresses from others, so harmlessness forbids the infliction of them.

As regards discipline, by which the health of the mind is restored, without which bodily health avails nothing for security against misery, the subject is one of great difficulty. And as in the body we said it is one thing to cure diseases and wounds, which few can do prop- erly, and another thing to meet the cravings of hunger and thirst, and to give assistance in all the other ways in which any man may at any time help another; so in the mind there are some things in which the high and rare offices of the teacher are not much called for—as, for instance, in advice and exhortation to give to the needy the things already mentioned as required for the body. To give such advice is to aid the mind by discipline, as giving the things themselves is aiding the body by our resources. But there are other cases where diseases of the mind, many and various in kind, are healed in a way strange and indescrib- able. Unless His medicine were sent from heaven to men, so heedlessly do they go on in sin, there would be no hope of salvation; and, indeed, even bodily health, if you go to the

6 Moral Behavior of the Catholic Church, 27–28; trans. Dods. From The Essential Augustine by Vernon J. Bourke, Editor. Copyright © 1974 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

Chapter 4: St. Augustine 65

root of the matter, can have come to men from none but God, who gives to all things their being, and their well-being.

This discipline, then, which is the medicine of the mind, as far as we can gather from the sacred Scriptures, includes two things, restraint and instruction. Restraint implies fear, and instruction love, in the person benefited by the discipline; for in the giver of the benefit there is the love without the fear. In both of these God Himself, by whose goodness and mercy it is that we are anything, has given us in the two Testaments a rule of discipline. For though both are found in both Testaments, still fear is prominent in the Old, and love in the New, which the apostle calls bondage in the one, and liberty in the other. Of the marvelous order and divine harmony of these Testaments it would take long to speak, and many pious and learned men have discoursed on it. The theme demands many books to set it forth and explain it as far as is possible for man. He, then, who loves his neighbor endeavors all he can to procure his safety in body and in soul, making the health of the mind the standard in his treatment of the body. And as regards the mind, his endeavors are in this order, that he should first fear and then love God. This is true excellence of conduct, and thus the knowledge of the truth, of which we are ever in pursuit, is acquired.

Unit 2

Chapter 5

St. Thomas Aquinas

TREATISE ON LAW According to St. Thomas, the definition of law may be rendered thus: “It is nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and pro- mulgated.” Let us briefly explore each of these four aspects of law.

1. Law is an ordinance of reason.

For St. Thomas, it is the role of reason, first, to apprehend the good and, second, to determine the most appropriate means to secure the good. Law is that which induces man to act or refrain from acting in such a way as to achieve the practical reason’s primary object, namely the good.

2. The law is always something directed to the common good.

The ultimate end or goal of human life is happiness and, consequently, the law must pertain first and foremost to the attainment of this end. The purpose of law, therefore, is to make human beings virtuous and good, and this it accomplishes by directing human actions in such a way as to conduce to virtue as well as by incentivizing law abidingness through the fear of punishment. With respect to this latter, St. Thomas makes the following psychological insight: “From becoming accustomed to avoid evil and fulfill what is good, through fear of punishment, one is sometimes led on to do so likewise, with delight and of one’s own accord. Accordingly, law, even by punishing, leads men on to being good.” Thus the threat of punishment or punishment itself seeks not merely to deter evil acts but also to help habituate human beings to virtue.

Further, it is absolutely crucial to recognize that law is not the practical reason ordering what the individual must do with a view to his own private good simply, but rather it is the practical rea- son ordering what the individual must do with a view to the good of the whole community of

70 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

which he is but a member: “since every part is ordained to the whole, as imperfect to perfect; and since one man is a part of the perfect community, the law must needs regard properly the relation- ship to universal happiness.”

3. The law is made by him who has care of the community.

The point here is simply that the making of a law, which by definition exists for the sake of the com- mon good, belongs to whoever is entrusted with the care of the whole people (i.e., a monarch, or a democratic assembly, etc.). For this reason it is absolutely essential that the leader(s) of a commu- nity be virtuous, for otherwise their edicts will not be ordinances of reason but of sin and error, not aimed at the common good, and thus they will not have the status of binding law, but rather of legislative tyranny.

4. The law must be promulgated.

In order for a law to be binding and legitimate, it must be promulgated, or made known to those for whom it is intended. This is so for the obvious reason that one cannot willfully obey a law if one is unaware of its existence.

THE FOUR KINDS OF LAW St. Thomas enumerates four distinct types of law. Let us briefly discuss each one, going from high- est to lowest.

1. Eternal law.

The eternal law is for St. Thomas synonymous with the Divine Reason, or God’s providential1 gover- nance of the universe, which moves all beings according to their several ends in subordination to the end or goal of the entire universe. Consider here St. Thomas’ “fifth way” of demonstrating God’s existence, known to modern scholars as the “argument from design”:

“We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowl- edge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent be- ing exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God” (Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 2, a. 3).

Inanimate bodies participate in the eternal law by acting in certain ways by natural necessity, that is, because they cannot act contrary to their God-given nature according to which they are directed to their appropriate end (this would encompass all of the scientific laws which govern the whole of the physical/natural world). Animals, on the other hand, participate (however uncon- sciously) in the eternal law by being governed by instinct. Human beings, however, because they are endowed with intelligence, participate in the eternal law through the natural law (about which more below).

1 Providence refers to a rational plan according to which things are directed toward an end.

Chapter 5: St. Thomas Aquinas 71

2. Divine law.

According to St. Thomas, man is directed toward an end (salvation and eternal life) the knowledge of which surpasses the grasp of his reason. That is, knowledge of man’s highest good lies beyond the capacity of imperfect human reason. For this reason, St. Thomas argues, God saw fit to reveal this truth to us via sacred scripture (i.e., the Biblical revelation). Divine law is therefore needed to teach matters that human reason insufficiently understands. In addition, whereas human law only ad- dresses actions, not intent, and since human law is incapable of judging intent (the “interior move- ments” of the soul, which constitute sin), Divine law is therefore necessary—“all is under the watch- ful eye of God . . .”

3. Natural law.

God has endowed mankind with a determinate nature by virtue of which human beings exhibit certain basic inclinations that, taken together, not only constitute our “humanity” and thereby dis- tinguish us from all other creatures, but also direct us toward those objects that, in accordance with God’s design, are good for us. Morality is thus founded on these natural inclinations as well as on reason’s ability to determine what moral prescriptions ought to be followed based on these inclina- tions. The first and most universal moral prescription is to “do good and avoid evil,” which is identi- cal to “seek out and acquire those goods toward which you are naturally inclined, and shun any- thing that is destructive thereof.” This, in brief, is the recipe for the good earthly life, according to St. Thomas.

Let us quickly go through each of the four2 natural inclinations, from lowest to highest. a. Self-preservation.

Like all living things, the human being endeavors—and ought to endeavor—with all his might to preserve his life. Suicide, as a direct violation of this inclination, is therefore evil.

b. Procreation and rearing of offspring. Like other animals, human beings are naturally inclined to mate and care for their young. The family unit is the natural expression of this basic inclination. Any activity or manner of living that actively thwarts these desires would be deemed evil, or contrary to nature (which amount to the same thing for St. Thomas).

c. To live in society. St. Thomas (following Aristotle) argues that man is by nature a political being, i.e., that he cannot attain virtue and happiness in isolation from a political community. Because human beings cannot thrive absent mutually beneficial or collaborative associations, it is imperative that men refrain from injuring those with whom they are called to live.

d. To know the truth about God. The human being is by nature a creature endowed with intelligence, and thus he is in- clined to desire knowledge, particularly about those things that are necessary for the right ordering of his life (i.e., God). As Aristotle said over sixteen centuries earlier, “All men by nature desire to know.” Correlatively, one ought to avoid ignorance and do what one can to dispel it.

2 Many commentators list them as three (collapsing C and D into one), but for the sake of clarity I will list them as four.

72 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

4. Human law.

Human law has specifically to do with determining ways of applying natural law. Whereas the pre- cepts of the natural law may not vary, their implementation certainly does. Because there is in the world such a multiplicity of social customs, institutions, mores, climates, histories, topographies, and cultures, St. Thomas believes that different societies will frame different codes of law.

Human law is supposed to proceed from natural law: it should be rational, and it should further fulfill the other three requirements of law (i.e., it must be for the sake of the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated). Any man-made law that deviates from these requirements is not strictly speaking a valid law.3

3 Consider how The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. drew on the logical consequences of Thomistic natural law theory in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, in which he criticizes segregation laws on the grounds that they degrade human personality by creating a false sense of superiority in the segregator no less than a false sense of inferiority in the segregated.

Chapter 5: St. Thomas Aquinas 73

Treatise on Law St. Thomas Aquinas

QUESTION 90 OF THE ESSENCE OF LAW1

First Article [I–II, Q. 90, Art. 1] Whether Law Is Something Pertaining to Reason?

I answer that, Law is a rule and measure of acts, whereby man is induced2 to act or is restrained from acting: for lex (law) is derived from ligare (to bind), because it binds one to act. Now the rule and measure of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts, as is evident from what has been stated above (Q. 1, A. 1, ad 3); since it belongs to the reason to direct to the end, which is the first principle in all matters of action . . .

Second Article [I-II, Q. 90, Art. 2] Whether the Law Is Always Something Directed to the Common Good?

I answer that . . . the first principle in practical matters, which are the object of the practical reason3, is the last end: and the last end of human life is bliss or happiness,4 as stated above (Q. 2, A. 7; Q. 3, A. 1). Consequently the law must needs regard principally the rela- tionship to happiness. Moreover, since every part is ordained to the whole, as imperfect to perfect; and since one man is a part of the perfect community,5 the law must needs regard properly the relationship to universal happiness. Wherefore the Philosopher6, in the above

From Summa Theologica, Part I–II by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 1 For the footnotes portion of this text I am indebted to Peter Kreeft’s excellent commentary in his Summa of the Summa (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990). 2 That is, led or commanded. Law binds us morally, though not physically: we can use our free will to obey or dis- obey. Someone living according to reason (which directs us to our goal of leading a good and happy life) will freely choose to obey. 3 The practical reason in St. Thomas operates in this way: The intellect apprehends something as good and thereby presents it to the will, which then wishes or wills that good as an end or goal. Once intending the good as its end, the agent (the one who wills) must decide upon the means to the end. If the means are not immediately obvious, the agent deliberates in order to seek out acceptable ways to the end. Reason then issues a judgment as to which means are preferable, followed by an act of will (called choice), and then the execution of that choice through deliberate action. For a fuller discussion of practical reason in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, see the Internet Encyclope- dia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/prac-med/#SH4a. 4 Man’s ultimate good is happiness, which, for St. Thomas, requires that we live in accordance with our God-given nature. As we will see in our discussion of natural law, God built certain natural inclinations into human nature, the most important of which are our reasoning abilities which allow us to discover our moral obligation to pursue those goods to which we are naturally inclined and to avoid anything which runs contrary to those inclinations (what St. Thomas refers to as “evil”). Man’s highest good (summum bonum in Latin), however, is not a natural but a super- natural good: the beatific vision, seeing God’s essence in a direct flash of insight, which is open only to those whom God saves. 5 Just as the soul is an individual substance but also the form of the body, so too is the human being a whole in himself and also a part of the greater whole of the community. 6 St. Thomas here refers to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

74 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

definition of legal matters mentions both happiness and the body politic: for he says (Ethic. v, 1) that we call those legal matters “just, which are adapted to produce and preserve hap- piness and its parts for the body politic . . .”

Third Article [I-II, Q. 90, Art. 3] Whether the Reason of Any Man Is Competent to Make Laws?

I answer that, A law, properly speaking, regards first and foremost the order to the common good. Now to order anything to the common good, belongs either to the whole people, or to someone who is the vice-regent7 of the whole people. And therefore the making of a law belongs either to the whole people or to a public personage who has care of the whole people . . .

Fourth Article [I-II, Q. 90, Art. 4] Whether Promulgation8 Is Essential to a Law?

I answer that, As stated above (A. 1), a law is imposed on others by way of a rule and mea- sure. Now a rule or measure is imposed by being applied to those who are to be ruled and measured by it. Wherefore, in order that a law obtain the binding force which is proper to a law, it must needs be applied to the men who have to be ruled by it. Such application is made by its being notified to them by promulgation. Wherefore promulgation is necessary for the law to obtain its force.

Thus from the four preceding articles, the definition of law may be gathered; and it is nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated.

QUESTION 91 OF THE VARIOUS KINDS OF LAW

First Article [I-II, Q. 91, Art. 1] Whether There Is an Eternal Law?

I answer that, As stated above (Q. 90, A. 1, ad 2; AA. 3, 4), a law is nothing else but a dic- tate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a perfect community. Now it is evident, granted that the world is ruled by Divine Providence, as was stated in the First Part (Q. 22, AA. 1, 2), that the whole community of the universe is governed by Divine Reason. Wherefore the very Idea of the government of things in God the Ruler of the uni- verse, has the nature of a law. And since the Divine Reason’s conception of things is not subject to time but is eternal, according to Prov. 8:23, therefore it is that this kind of law must be called eternal.

Second Article [I-II, Q. 91, Art. 2] Whether There Is in Us a Natural Law?

On the contrary, A gloss on Rom. 2:14: “When the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law,” comments as follows: “Although they have no writ- ten law, yet they have the natural law, whereby each one knows, and is conscious of, what is good and what is evil.”

7 A vice-regent is a representative who rules for the good of the people. 8 To promulgate is to make known.

Chapter 5: St. Thomas Aquinas 75

I answer that, As stated above (Q. 90, A. 1, ad 1), law, being a rule and measure, can be in a person in two ways: in one way, as in him that rules and measures; in another way, as in that which is ruled and measured, since a thing is ruled and measured, in so far as it partakes of the rule or measure. Wherefore, since all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law, as was stated above (A. 1); it is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for oth- ers. Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. Hence the Psalmist after saying (Ps. 4:6): “Offer up the sacrifice of justice,” as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: “Many say, Who showeth us good things?” in answer to which question he says: “The light of Thy counte- nance, O Lord, is signed upon us”: thus implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light. It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature’s participation of the eternal law.9

Third Article [I-II, Q. 91, Art. 3] Whether There Is a Human Law?

I answer that, As stated above (Q. 90, A. 1, ad 2), a law is a dictate of the practical reason. Now it is to be observed that the same procedure takes place in the practical and in the speculative reason: for each proceeds from principles to conclusions, as stated above (ibid.). Accordingly we conclude that just as, in the speculative reason, from naturally known indemonstrable principles, we draw the conclusions of the various sciences, the knowledge of which is not imparted to us by nature, but acquired by the efforts of reason, so too it is from the precepts of the natural law, as from general and indemonstrable prin- ciples,10 that the human reason needs to proceed to the more particular determination of certain matters. These particular determinations, devised by human reason, are called hu- man laws . . .11

Fourth Article [I-II, Q. 91, Art. 4] Whether There Was Any Need for a Divine Law?12

I answer that, Besides the natural and the human law it was necessary for the directing of human conduct to have a Divine law. And this for four reasons. First, because . . . man is ordained to an end of eternal happiness . . .

Secondly . . . on account of the uncertainty of human judgment . . . Thirdly, because . . . man is not competent to judge of interior movements, that are hidden . . . Fourthly, because . . . human law cannot punish or forbid all evil deeds . . .

9 Therefore the voice of conscience (i.e., man’s reason judging good and evil) is an echo or reflection of the voice of God, and is thus sacred and inviolable. 10 St. Thomas here refers to self-evident theoretical axioms such as the law of non-contradiction (a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time in the same respect) as well as self-evident practical axioms, both general (do good and shun evil) and specific (be just). These are what St. Thomas calls “the precepts of the natural law,” which are naturally known to us just as the first theoretical principles are. 11 “Human law” is also known as “positive law” (law laid down or posited by man). 12 Divine law is that part of eternal law which God promulgated by special revelation (i.e., Sacred Scripture).

76 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

QUESTION 92 OF THE EFFECTS OF LAW We must now consider the effects of law; under which head there are two points of inquiry:

1. Whether an effect of law is to make men good? 2. Whether the effects of law are to command, to forbid, to permit, and to punish, as

the Jurist states?

First Article [I-II, Q. 92, Art. 1] Whether an Effect of Law Is to Make Men Good?

Objection 1: It seems that it is not an effect of law to make men good. For men are good through virtue13, since virtue, as stated in Ethic. ii, 6 is “that which makes its subject good.” But virtue is in man from God alone, because He it is Who “works it in us without us,” as we stated above (Q. 55, A. 4) in giving the definition of virtue. Therefore the law does not make men good.

Obj. 2: Further, Law does not profit a man unless he obeys it. But the very fact that a man obeys a law is due to his being good. Therefore in man goodness is presupposed to the law. Therefore the law does not make men good.

Obj. 3: Further, Law is ordained to the common good, as stated above (Q. 90, A. 2). But some behave well in things regarding the community, who behave ill in things regard- ing themselves. Therefore it is not the business of the law to make men good.

Obj. 4: Further, some laws are tyrannical, as the Philosopher says (Polit. iii, 6). But a tyrant does not intend the good of his subjects, but considers only his own profit. Therefore law does not make men good.

On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Ethic. ii, 1) that the “intention of every lawgiver is to make good citizens.”

Reply Obj. 1: Virtue is twofold, as explained above (Q. 63, A. 2), viz. acquired and in- fused. Now the fact of being accustomed to an action contributes to both, but in different ways; for it causes the acquired virtue; while it disposes to infused virtue, and preserves and fosters it when it already exists. And since law is given for the purpose of directing hu- man acts; as far as human acts conduce to virtue, so far does law make men good. Where- fore the Philosopher says in the second book of the Politics (Ethic. ii) that “lawgivers make men good by habituating them to good works.”

Reply Obj. 2: It is not always through perfect goodness of virtue that one obeys the law, but sometimes it is through fear of punishment . . .

Reply Obj. 3: The goodness of any part is considered in comparison with the whole; hence Augustine says (Confess. iii) that “unseemly is the part that harmonizes not with the whole.” Since then every man is a part of the state, it is impossible that a man be good, un- less he be well proportionate to the common good: nor can the whole be well consistent unless its parts be proportionate to it. Consequently the common good of the state cannot flourish, unless the citizens be virtuous, at least those whose business it is to govern. But it is enough for the good of the community, that the other citizens be so far virtuous that they obey the commands of their rulers . . .

Reply Obj. 4: A tyrannical law, through not being according to reason, is not a law, absolutely speaking, but rather a perversion of law . . .

13 A virtue is a good habit, a moral excellence.

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Second Article [I-II, Q. 92, Art. 2] Whether the Acts of Law Are Suitably Assigned?

Obj. 4: Further, the intention of a lawgiver is to make men good, as stated above (A. 1). But he that obeys the law, merely through fear of being punished, is not good: because “al- though a good deed may be done through servile fear, i.e., fear of punishment, it is not done well,” as Augustine says (Contra duas Epist. Pelag. ii). Therefore punishment is not a proper effect of law.

On the contrary, Isidore says (Etym. v, 19): “Every law either permits something, as: ‘A brave man may demand his reward’ ”: or forbids something, as: “No man may ask a conse- crated virgin in marriage”: or punishes, as: “Let him that commits a murder be put to death.”

Reply Obj. 4: From becoming accustomed to avoid evil and fulfill what is good, through fear of punishment, one is sometimes led on to do so likewise, with delight and of one’s own accord. Accordingly, law, even by punishing, leads men on to being good.

QUESTION 93 OF THE ETERNAL LAW

Second Article [I-II, Q. 93, Art. 2] Whether the Eternal Law Is Known to All?

Objection 1: It would seem that the eternal law is not known to all. Because, as the Apostle says (1 Cor. 2:11), “the things that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God.” But the eternal law is a type existing in the Divine mind. Therefore it is unknown to all save God alone.

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 6) that “knowledge of the eternal law is imprinted on us.”

I answer that, A thing may be known in two ways: first, in itself; secondly, in its effect, wherein some likeness of that thing is found: thus someone not seeing the sun in its sub- stance, may know it by its rays. So then no one can know the eternal law, as it is in itself, except the blessed who see God in His Essence. But every rational creature knows it in its reflection, greater or less. For every knowledge of truth is a kind of reflection and participa- tion of the eternal law, which is the unchangeable truth, as Augustine says (De Vera Relig. xxxi). Now all men know the truth to a certain extent, at least as to the common principles of the natural law: and as to the others, they partake of the knowledge of truth, some more, some less; and in this respect are more or less cognizant of the eternal law.

Reply Obj. 1: We cannot know the things that are of God, as they are in themselves; but they are made known to us in their effects, according to Rom. 1:20: “The invisible things of God . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.”

Third Article [I-II, Q. 93, Art. 3] Whether Every Law Is Derived from the Eternal Law?

Obj. 2: Further, nothing unjust can be derived from the eternal law, because, as stated above (A. 2, Obj. 2), “the eternal law is that, according to which it is right that all things should be most orderly.” But some laws are unjust, according to Isa. 10:1: “Woe to them that make wicked laws.” Therefore not every law is derived from the eternal law.

On the contrary, Divine Wisdom says (Prov. 8:15): “By Me kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things.” But the type of Divine Wisdom is the eternal law, as stated above (A. 1). Therefore all laws proceed from the eternal law.

78 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

I answer that . . . Since then the eternal law is the plan of government in the Chief Governor, all the plans of government in the inferior governors must be derived from the eternal law. But these plans of inferior governors are all other laws besides the eternal law. Therefore all laws, in so far as they partake of right reason, are derived from the eternal law. Hence Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 6) that “in temporal law there is nothing just and lawful, but what man has drawn from the eternal law.”

Reply Obj. 2: Human law has the nature of law in so far as it partakes of right reason; and it is clear that, in this respect, it is derived from the eternal law. But in so far as it devi- ates from reason, it is called an unjust law, and has the nature, not of law but of violence. Nevertheless even an unjust law, in so far as it retains some appearance of law, though be- ing framed by one who is in power, is derived from the eternal law; since all power is from the Lord God, according to Rom. 13:1.

Sixth Article [I-II, Q. 93, Art. 6] Whether All Human Affairs Are Subject to the Eternal Law?

I answer that, There are two ways in which a thing is subject to the eternal law, as explained above (A. 5): first, by partaking of the eternal law by way of knowledge; secondly, by way of action and passion, i.e., by partaking of the eternal law by way of an inward motive prin- ciple: and in this second way, irrational creatures are subject to the eternal law, as stated above (A. 5). But since the rational nature, together with that which it has in common with all creatures, has something proper to itself inasmuch as it is rational, consequently it is subject to the eternal law in both ways; because while each rational creature has some knowledge of the eternal law, as stated above (A. 2), it also has a natural inclination to that which is in harmony with the eternal law; for “we are naturally adapted to the recipients of virtue” (Ethic. ii, 1).

Both ways, however, are imperfect, and to a certain extent destroyed, in the wicked; because in them the natural inclination to virtue is corrupted by vicious habits, and, more- over, the natural knowledge of good is darkened by passions and habits of sin. But in the good both ways are found more perfect: because in them, besides the natural knowledge of good, there is the added knowledge of faith and wisdom; and again, besides the natural inclination to good, there is the added motive of grace14 and virtue . . .

QUESTION 94 OF THE NATURAL LAW

Second Article [I-II, Q. 94, Art. 2] Whether the Natural Law Contains Several Precepts, or Only One?

I answer that, As stated above (Q. 91, A. 3), the precepts of the natural law are to the prac- tical reason, what the first principles of demonstrations are to the speculative reason; be- cause both are self-evident principles. Now a thing is said to be self-evident in two ways: first, in itself; secondly, in relation to us. Any proposition is said to be self-evident in itself, if its predicate is contained in the notion of the subject: although, to one who knows not the definition of the subject, it happens that such a proposition is not self-evident. For instance, this proposition, “Man is a rational being,” is, in its very nature, self-evident, since who says

14 Grace refers to that which God bestows freely, as distinct from natural necessity.

Chapter 5: St. Thomas Aquinas 79

“man,” says “a rational being”: and yet to one who knows not what a man is, this proposi- tion is not self-evident. Hence it is that, as Boethius says (De Hebdom), certain axioms or propositions are universally self-evident to all; and such are those propositions whose terms are known to all, as, “Every whole is greater than its part,” and, “Things equal to one and the same are equal to one another.” But some propositions are self-evident only to the wise, who understand the meaning of the terms of such propositions: thus to one who under- stands that an angel is not a body, it is self-evident that an angel is not circumscriptively in a place: but this is not evident to the unlearned, for they cannot grasp it.

Now a certain order is to be found in those things that are apprehended universally. For that which, before aught else, falls under apprehension, is being, the notion of which is included in all things whatsoever a man apprehends. Wherefore the first indemonstrable principle is that “the same thing cannot be affirmed and denied at the same time,” which is based on the notion of being and not-being: and on this principle all others are based, as is stated in Metaph. iv, text. 9. Now as being15 is the first thing that falls under the apprehen- sion simply, so good is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical rea- son, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good. Consequently the first principle of practical reason is one founded on the notion of good, viz. that “good is that which all things seek after.” Hence this is the first precept of law, that “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.”16 All other precepts of the natu- ral law are based upon this: so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man’s good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided.

Since, however, good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally appre- hended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contrar- ies as evil, and objects of avoidance. Wherefore according to the order of natural inclina- tions, is the order of the precepts of the natural law. Because in man there is first of all an inclination to good in accordance with the nature which he has in common with all sub- stances: inasmuch as every substance seeks the preservation of its own being, according to its nature: and by reason of this inclination, whatever is a means of preserving human life, and of warding off its obstacles, belongs to the natural law. Secondly, there is in man an inclination to things that pertain to him more specially, according to that nature which he has in common with other animals: and in virtue of this inclination, those things are said to belong to the natural law, “which nature has taught to all animals” [*Pandect. Just. I, tit. i], such as sexual intercourse, education of offspring and so forth. Thirdly, there is in man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which nature is proper to him: thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society: and in this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to the natural law; for instance, to shun ignorance, to avoid offending those among whom one has to live, and other such things regarding the above inclination.

15 By “being,” St. Thomas means that which is, whether actual (fully real, perfect, complete) or potential (not yet fully actualized) either in the mind (a “being of reason”) or in objective reality (“a being in nature”); also (ens) an entity or substance; (esse) the act of existing; (essentia) essence or what a thing is. 16 It is important to recognize that for St. Thomas, all ethics is fundamentally about goods, as opposed to modern ethics, which tends to be concerned most especially with rights, duties, obligations, laws, or “values.” What exactly does St. Thomas mean by “good”? He means that it is 1) metaphysical, 2) objective (unlike “values,” which are rela- tive or subjective), 3) universal (unlike “rights” and “duties”), 4) intellectually grasped (“naturally apprehended by reason as being good”), and 5) correlative or mutually related with natural inclination, in accord with human nature.

80 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

Third Article [I-II, Q. 94, Art. 3] Whether All Acts of Virtue Are Prescribed by the Natural Law?

Obj. 2: Every sin is opposed to some virtuous act. If therefore all acts of virtue are pre- scribed by the natural law, it seems to follow that all sins are against nature: whereas this applies to certain special sins.

I answer that, . . . If . . . we speak of acts of virtue, considered as virtuous, thus all virtuous acts belong to the natural law. For it has been stated (A. 2) that to the natural law belongs everything to which a man is inclined according to his nature. Now each thing is inclined naturally to an operation that is suitable to it according to its form: thus fire is in- clined to give heat. Wherefore, since the rational soul is the proper form of man, there is in every man a natural inclination to act according to reason: and this is to act according to virtue. Consequently, considered thus, all acts of virtue are prescribed by the natural law: since each one’s reason naturally dictates to him to act virtuously . . .

Reply Obj. 2: By human nature we may mean either that which is proper to man—and in this sense all sins, as being against reason, are also against nature, as Damascene states (De Fide Orth. ii, 30): or we may mean that nature which is common to man and other ani- mals; and in this sense, certain special sins are said to be against nature; thus contrary to sexual intercourse, which is natural to all animals, is unisexual lust, which has received the special name of the unnatural crime.

QUESTION 95 OF HUMAN LAW

First Article [I-II, Q. 95, Art. 1] Whether It Was Useful for Laws to Be Framed by Men? On the contrary, Isidore says (Etym. v, 20): “Laws were made that in fear thereof human audacity might be held in check, that innocence might be safeguarded in the midst of wick- edness, and that the dread of punishment might prevent the wicked from doing harm.” But these things are most necessary to mankind. Therefore it was necessary that human laws should be made.

I answer that, As stated above (Q. 63, A. 1; Q. 94, A. 3), man has a natural aptitude for virtue; but the perfection of virtue must be acquired by man by means of some kind of training.17 Thus we observe that man is helped by industry in his necessities, for instance, in food and clothing. Certain beginnings of these he has from nature, viz. his reason and his hands; but he has not the full complement, as other animals have, to whom nature has given sufficiency of clothing and food. Now it is difficult to see how man could suffice for himself in the matter of this training: since the perfection of virtue consists chiefly in with- drawing man from undue pleasures, to which above all man is inclined, and especially the young, who are more capable of being trained. Consequently a man needs to receive this training from another, whereby to arrive at the perfection of virtue. And as to those young people who are inclined to acts of virtue, by their good natural disposition, or by custom, or rather by the gift of God, paternal training suffices, which is by admonitions. But since some are found to be depraved, and prone to vice, and not easily amenable to words, it was necessary for such to be restrained from evil by force and fear, in order that, at least, they

17 For St. Thomas, human beings have a natural aptitude for knowledge and virtue, but we must freely choose to work to acquire both.

Chapter 5: St. Thomas Aquinas 81

might desist from evil-doing, and leave others in peace, and that they themselves, by being habituated in this way, might be brought to do willingly what hitherto they did from fear, and thus become virtuous. Now this kind of training, which compels through fear of pun- ishment, is the discipline of laws. Therefore in order that man might have peace and virtue, it was necessary for laws to be framed: for, as the Philosopher says (Polit. i, 2), “as man is the most noble of animals if he be perfect in virtue, so is he the lowest of all, if he be sev- ered from law and righteousness”; because man can use his reason to devise means of satisfying his lusts and evil passions, which other animals are unable to do.

Second Article [I-II, Q. 95, Art. 2] Whether Every Human Law Is Derived from the Natural Law?

I answer that, As Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5) “that which is not just seems to be no law at all”: wherefore the force of a law depends on the extent of its justice. Now in human affairs a thing is said to be just, from being right, according to the rule of reason. But the first rule of reason is the law of nature, as is clear from what has been stated above (Q. 91, A. 2, ad 2). Consequently every human law has just so much of the nature of law, as it is derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law.

But it must be noted that something may be derived from the natural law in two ways: first, as a conclusion from premises, secondly, by way of determination of certain generali- ties. The first way is like to that by which, in sciences, demonstrated conclusions are drawn from the principles: while the second mode is likened to that whereby, in the arts, general forms are particularized as to details: thus the craftsman needs to determine the general form of a house to some particular shape. Some things are therefore derived from the gen- eral principles of the natural law, by way of conclusions; e.g., that “one must not kill” may be derived as a conclusion from the principle that “one should do harm to no man”: while some are derived therefrom by way of determination; e.g., the law of nature has it that the evil-doer should be punished; but that he be punished in this or that way, is a determination of the law of nature.

Accordingly both modes of derivation are found in the human law. But those things which are derived in the first way, are contained in human law not as emanating therefrom exclusively, but have some force from the natural law also. But those things which are de- rived in the second way, have no other force than that of human law.

Chapter 6

Thomas Hobbes

SECTION 1 Among animals there are two basic types of motions: vital and animal. The former involve basic functions of which we are normally not aware, such as breathing and the circulation of the blood. The animal or voluntary motions, on the other hand, involve actions such as walking, speaking, and striking. These motions originate in the imagination, or what Hobbes calls “endeavor.”

There are two types of endeavor: (1) appetite or desire causes us to gravitate toward an ob- ject that we find pleasing, whereas (2) aversion forces us to withdraw from something which gives us pain. For Hobbes, love refers to the objects of appetite or desire, whereas we are said to hate those things to which we are averse.

Regarding appetites and aversions, some are natural, such as hunger and the impulse to avoid pain, while others are acquired from experience. But because man’s constitution is constantly chang- ing, Hobbes argues, “it is impossible that all the same things should always cause in him the same appetites, and aversions: much less can all men consent, in the desire of almost any one and the same object.”

SECTION 2 According to Hobbes, our use of the terms “Good” and “Evil” simply reflects our desire for or aver- sion to a given object. Good and evil, in other words, have no significance independent of our sub- jective valuations, “there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves.” Good and evil are therefore relative (to the individual), not absolute. Since not all men will desire, or have an aversion to, the same object (because not all men are pleased or displeased by the exact same things), it stands to reason that not everyone will agree that the same object is “good” or “evil”—with the following exceptions: according to Hobbes we can all agree that self-preservation and pleasure are good, and that death (in particular, violent death) is evil.

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SECTION 3 Hobbes was one of the first thinkers to argue in favor of natural equality: while some men are mani- festly of quicker mind or stronger body than others, “yet when all is reckoned together, the differ- ence between man and man is not so considerable” such that one man may claim a natural superi- ority over others. When it comes to the faculties of the mind, Hobbes finds “yet a greater equality amongst men, than that of strength.” Prudence, for example, “is but experience; which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.” Vanity is the source of our mistaken belief in our own superior wisdom.

“From this equality of ability, arises equality of hope in the attaining of our ends.” It is this equality of hope which gives rise to all the violence and instability of the state of nature, which is mankind’s natural condition. Scarcity is one of the defining features of the state of nature: because there are not enough resources available to satisfy human needs, men enter into violent competi- tion in order to acquire those scarce goods. Even if an invader comes “prepared with forces united, to dispossess, and deprive” someone “not only of the fruit of his labor, but also of his life, or liberty,” he in turn will be “in the like danger of another.” There is no security in the state of nature because there are no private property rights, to say nothing of a governing body to defend such rights.

The surest means of securing oneself (short of erecting a commonwealth), Hobbes remarks, is “for force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him . . .” In other words, one would have to either kill or otherwise en- slave everybody else. Clearly that is not exactly a viable option. As Hobbes will point out in subse- quent sections, the only escape from the horrors of our natural condition is to leave the state of nature entirely by the establishment of a civil society.

SECTION 4 Hobbes identifies three principal sources of human conflict: (1) competition for scarce goods, (2) diffidence, or the mutual sense of insecurity or vulnerability to attack which impels us to strike preemptively in order to gain the upper hand in the struggle for survival, and lastly, (3) glory, the quest for immortal fame, perhaps the scarcest of goods and hence an object of bloodthirsty competition.

Whenever men live outside the bounds of civil society, and thus without the restraints of law and order, they are in a condition of war in which “every man is enemy to every man.” In such an unstable condition, all the appurtenances of civilized life are conspicuously absent: there is no place for industry, as property rights are non-existent; no agriculture; no navigation or international trade; no spacious and convenient dwellings; no technology or labor-saving devices; no knowledge of the earth; no account of time; no fine arts and letters; no agreeable social relations; “and, which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Life in Hobbes’ state of nature, to put it bluntly, is hell on earth.

SECTION 5 According to Hobbes, human beings enter into society not out of mutual goodwill or fellow feeling, but out of the mutual fear they have of each other, a fear consisting “partly in the natural equality of men, partly in their mutual will of hurting.” What makes us all equals in the final analysis is our equal susceptibility to violent death; self-preservation thus becomes the individual’s highest priority. But is

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not the selfish desire to preserve one’s life at all costs a thing to be discouraged? Far from it, says Hobbes:

“[T]o have a care of one’s self is so far from being a matter scornfully to be looked upon,

that one has neither the power nor wish to have done otherwise. For every man is

desirous of what is good for him, and shuns what is evil, but chiefly the chiefest of

natural evils, which is death; and this he doth by a certain impulsion of nature, no less

than that whereby a stone moves downward.” Hobbes here lays the groundwork for his theory of natural rights, foremost among which is the right to self-preservation by any means necessary: “since every man hath a right to preserve himself, he must also be allowed a right to use all the means, and do all the actions, without which he cannot preserve himself.” Thus “in the state of nature, to have all, and do all, is lawful for all,” meaning that men are entirely free to do whatever reason requires (killing, stealing, enslaving, pillaging, etc.,) for the purposes of survival and avoidance of pain: “profit is the measure of right.”

SECTIONS 6 AND 7 Anticipating the objections against selfish and exploitative action in the state of nature, Hobbes challenges us to reflect for a moment on our own experience: When we go on a journey, do we not arm ourselves and bring companions for safety? When going to sleep, do we not lock our doors and secure our valuables (and this when we know that laws are in place to punish offenders)? What opin- ion do we have of our fellow citizens, of our servants, and even of our own children, when we be- have in such suspicious ways? Do we not there as much accuse mankind by our actions as Hobbes does by his words? So it is, then, that the “desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin”—they are unalterable aspects of human nature. Likewise, the actions (rape, theft, murder, etc.,) that proceed from those passions “are in themselves no sin” until a law is made that forbids them, and in the bare state of nature there are no such laws, since there is no governing body to enact and enforce them. This being the case, the “notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice.” For Hobbes, justice is equated strictly with positive, or man-made, law (as he says in section 12: “no law can be unjust”). Unlike St. Thomas Aquinas’ natural law theory, for Hobbes there is no standard of justice that goes beyond the human law.

So how, according to Hobbes, do human beings escape the violence and instability of their natural state? The solution lies partly in the passions, partly in our reason:

“The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are

necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And

reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to

agreement. These articles . . . are called the Laws of Nature.” Mankind’s motivation to escape their misery originates in (1) fear of the greatest of evils that can ever befall us, namely violent death, combined with (2) the desire to live comfortably. These two

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passions impel our reason to discover the law of nature (“to seek peace, and follow it”), from which Hobbes derives the social contract:

“[T]hat a man be willing, when others are so too [for the sake of peace] to lay down this

right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he

would allow other men against himself.” In order to secure ourselves from violent death in the state of nature, we must first join together, mutually divesting ourselves of our right to harm one another, which is nicely captured in the mod- ern saying, “your right to punch me ends where my nose begins.”

SECTION 8 Our covenants, or agreements, are valuable only to the extent that we abide by them. It is here that justice and injustice acquire their original import and significance: “when a covenant is made, then to break it is unjust: and the definition of INJUSTICE, is no other than the not performance of cove- nant. And whatsoever is not unjust, is just.” But in order to ensure compliance, there must be “some coercive power, to compel men equally to the performance of their covenants, by the terror of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant . . .” The coercive power Hobbes speaks of is the civil government, or commonwealth.

SECTION 9 The laws of nature can be neatly summed up in Hobbes’ Golden Rule: “Do not that to another which thou wouldest not have done to thyself,” which is in stark contrast to Christ’s version: “Do unto an- other as thou wouldest have others do unto thyself.” The latter version promotes charity and com- passion, whereas the former merely advises against harming others, not out of any concern for their well-being, of course, but purely out of a selfish regard not to be harmed oneself. This revised Golden Rule is peculiarly modern, and can be seen everywhere, from such platitudes as “honesty is the best policy,” to the injunction to obey traffic laws on the grounds that “the life you save may be your own.”

SECTION 10 Hobbes’ commonwealth invests certain rights and faculties in the sovereign or ruling power, which may be comprised of one, few, or many individuals, depending on “the consent of the people as- sembled.” First, once the people enter into a covenant, they cannot dissolve or otherwise alter it without the sovereign’s permission. Secondly, the sovereign, as the origin of the covenant, can never be guilty of violating it, since he is not bound by it. Thirdly, because a majority of consenting voices declared a sovereign, whoever may have dissented must now consent with everyone else, for by voluntarily entering into deliberations with the others, he has “tacitly covenanted, to stand to what the major part should ordain . . .” Sixthly, the sovereign must exercise the power of censor- ship in order to prevent ideas and opinions that are destructive to the peace from reaching men’s ears. For, Hobbes explains, “the actions of men proceed from their opinions; and in the well- governing of opinions, consisteth the well-governing of men’s actions, in order to their peace, and concord.” The only relevant criterion for invoking the censorship rule is not the truth-value of the

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idea in question, but rather its likely effect on peace and stability in the commonwealth. Seventhly, the sovereignty has the power to establish what Hobbes calls propriety, or the range of permissible and impermissible actions: “These rules of propriety, or [mine] and [yours], and of good, evil, lawful, and unlawful in the actions of subjects, are the civil laws; that is to say, the laws of each common- wealth in particular.” The laws, in other words, contain within themselves the entire moral frame- work that guides each and every subject in the commonwealth.

SECTION 11 One of the great “diseases” of civil society is the “seditious doctrine” whereby “every private man is judge of good and evil actions,” or what in contemporary language is known as moral relativism. This may be true in the anarchic state of nature, but otherwise “it is manifest, that the measure of good and evil actions, is the civil law.” One may wonder why Hobbes so vehemently opposes the freedom of each individual to define good and evil for himself; “From this false doctrine,” he ex- plains, “men are disposed to debate with themselves, and dispute the commands of the common- wealth; and afterwards to obey, or disobey them, as in their private judgments they shall think fit; whereby the commonwealth is distracted and weakened.” The same holds true for liberty of con- science, which tends to have a similar effect on social order whenever the subjects’ private judg- ments happen to conflict with the civil laws, which later in Hobbes’ commonwealth assume the role of a surrogate conscience, ensuring thereby concord and law-abidingness.

SECTION 12 The sovereign is responsible for making clearly stated laws that are for the good of the people:

“For the use of laws, which are but rules authorized, is not to bind the people from all

voluntary actions; but to direct and keep them in such a motion, as not to hurt

themselves by their own impetuous desires, rashness or indiscretion; as hedges are set,

not to stop travelers, but to keep them on their way.” The civil laws do not repress all voluntary action, but rather direct and channel human activity so as to prevent men from harming one another. In the final analysis, Hobbes’ entire political project is dedicated to establishing “the safety of the people.” The goal, however, is not “a bare preservation, but also all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger, or hurt to the commonwealth, shall acquire to himself.” The only other option is a total breakdown of the commonwealth, and therewith a return to the “calamity of a war with every other man, which is the greatest evil that can happen in this life . . .”

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Social Contract Ethics Thomas Hobbes

1. The elements of Hobbes’ psychological theory are presented in a set of principles that govern the various “motions” of the human mind.

There be in animals, two sorts of motions peculiar to them: one called vital; begun in gen- eration, and continued without interruption through their whole life; such as are the course of the blood, the pulse, the breathing, the concoction, nutrition, excretion, etc., to which mo- tions there needs no help of imagination; the other is animal motion, otherwise called vol- untary motion; as to go, to speak, to move any of our limbs, in such manner as is first fan- cied in our minds. That sense of motion in the organs and interior parts of man’s body, caused by the action of the things we see, hear, etc.; and that fancy is but the relics of the same motion, remaining after sense, has been already said in the first and second chapters. And because going, speaking, and the like voluntary motions, depend always upon a prec- edent thought of whither, which way, and what; it is evident, that the imagination is the first internal beginning of all voluntary motion. And although unstudied men do not con- ceive any motion at all to be there, where the thing moved is invisible; or the space it is moved in is, for the shortness of it, insensible; yet that doth not hinder, but that such mo- tions are. For let a space be never so little, that which is moved over a greater space, whereof that little one is part, must first be moved over that. These small beginnings of motion, within the body of man, before they appear in walking, speaking, striking, and other visible actions, are commonly called ENDEAVOR.

This endeavor, when it is toward something which causes it, is called APPETITE, or DESIRE; the latter, being the general name; and the other oftentimes restrained to signify the desire of food, namely hunger and thirst. And when the endeavor is fromward some- thing, it is generally called AVERSION. These words, appetite and aversion, we have from the Latins; and they both of them signify the motions, one of approaching, the other of re- tiring. . . . For nature itself does often press upon men those truths, which afterwards, when they look for somewhat beyond nature, they stumble at. For the schools find in mere ap- petite to go, or move, no actual motion at all: but because some motion they must ac- knowledge, they call it metaphorical motion; which is but an absurd speech: for though words may be called metaphorical; bodies and motions cannot.

That which men desire, they are also said to LOVE: and to HATE those things for which they have aversion. So that desire and love are the same thing; save that by desire, we always signify the absence of the object; by love, most commonly the presence of the same. So also by aversion, we signify the absence; and by hate, the presence of the object.

Of appetites and aversions, some are born with men; as appetite of food, appetite of excretion, and exoneration, which may also and more properly be called aversions, from somewhat they feel in their bodies; and some other appetites, not many. The rest, which are appetites of particular things, proceed from experience, and trial of their effects upon themselves or other men. For of things we know not at all, or believe not to be, we can have no further desire, than to taste and try. But aversion we have for things, not only which we know have hurt us, but also that we do not know whether they will hurt us, nor not.

Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan and Philosophical Rudiments,” from The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, Vols. II and III, Sir William Molesworth, ed., London, John Bohn, 1839.

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Those things which we neither desire, nor hate, we are said to contemn; CONTEMPT being nothing else by an immobility, or contumacy of the heart, in resisting the action of certain things; and proceeding from that the heart is already moved otherwise, by other more potent objects; or from want of experience of them.

And because the constitution of a man’s body is in continual mutation, it is impossible that all the same things should always cause in him the same appetites, and aversions: much less can all men consent, in the desire of almost any one and the same object.

2. Hobbes interprets the traditional ethical concepts, “good” and “evil,” in terms of this mechanistic psychological theory.

But whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and in- considerable. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves.

3. For people in a presocial state, the desires and aversions that underlie their judg- ments of good and evil are directed toward their primary objective, self-preserva- tion. Hobbes terms continual success in preserving oneself felicity or happiness. Various objects of desire—that is, goods such as friendship, riches, and intelli- gence—promote this felicity. Friends are good because they come to our defense when we are in difficulties; riches are good because they buy the allies we need for our security; intelligence is good because it alerts us to danger.

When the objects of desire are examined from the point of view of effectiveness in promot- ing felicity, they are termed powers. Hobbes ascribes to humans in their natural state a general tendency to “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceaseth only in death.” When several persons desire the same object, enmity arises; and because nature endows them equally with the various mental and physical powers, the personal confidence that each one feels intensifies the likelihood of conflict.

Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of the body, and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himself.

And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general, and infallible rules, called science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born with us; nor at- tained, as prudence, while we look after somewhat else, I find yet a greater equality amongst men, than that of strength. For prudence, is but experience; which equal time, equally be- stows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which may perhaps make such equality incredible, is but a vain conceit of one’s own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree, than the vulgar; that is, than all men but themselves, and a few others, whom by fame, or for concurring with themselves, they ap- prove. For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, and other men’s at a dis- tance. But this proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of any thing, than that every man is contented with his share.

From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy,

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they become enemies; and in the way to their end, which is principally their own conserva- tion, and sometimes their delectation only, endeavor to destroy, or subdue one another. And from hence it comes to pass, that where an invader hath no more to fear, than another man’s single power; if one plant, sow, built, or possess a convenient seat, others may prob- ably be expected to come prepared with forces united, to dispossess, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labor, but also of his life, or liberty. And the invader again is in the like danger of another.

And from this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself, so reasonable, as anticipation; that is, for force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: and this is no more than his own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed. Also because there be some, that taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires; if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defense, to subsist. And by consequence, such augmentation of dominion over men being necessary to a man’s conservation, it ought to be allowed him.

Again, men have no pleasure, but on the contrary a great deal of grief, in keeping company, where there is no power able to overawe them all. For every man looketh that his companion should value him, at the same rate he sets upon himself: and upon all signs of contempt, or undervaluing, naturally endeavors, as far as he dares, (which amongst them that have no common power to keep them in quiet, is far enough to make them destroy each other), to extort a greater value from his contemnérs, by damage; and from others, by the example.

4. From his examination of the contentiousness of people in the absence of political organization, Hobbes discovers three sources of controversy in human nature. The natural condition of human beings, he says, is universal war. He does not claim that the “state of nature” actually existed historically; rather, it exists in any time or place where civil society is not functioning.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.

The first, maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety, and the third, for reputa- tion. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons, or by re- flection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.

Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man. For WAR, consisteth not in battle only, or act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time, is to be considered in the nature of war; as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather, lieth not in a shower or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and conse- quently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such

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things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life—of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. . . .

It may peradventure be thought, there was never such a time, nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world: but there are many places, where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the gov- ernment of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no govern- ment at all; and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before. Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner of life there would be, where there were no common power to fear, by the manner of life, which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful govern- ment, use to degenerate into, in a civil war.

But though there had never been any time, wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another; yet in all times, kings, and persons of sovereign authority, be- cause of the independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms; and continual spies upon their neighbors; which is a posture of war. But because they uphold thereby, the industry of their subjects; there does not follow from it, that misery, which accompanies the liberty of particular men.

5. Hobbes argues that society originates out of self-interest and fear, not out of natural feeling for other people. He defends as natural and reasonable the interest one takes in one’s own welfare and happiness. In a state of nature, the first and only rule of life is self-protection, and human beings have a natural right to do anything that serves this end.

All society therefore is either for gain, or for glory; that is, not so much for love of our fel- lows, as for the love of ourselves. But no society can be great or lasting, which begins from vain glory. Because that glory is like honor; if all men have it no man hath it, for they con- sist in comparison and precellence. Neither doth the society of others advance any whit the cause of my glorying in myself; for every man must account himself, such as he can make himself without the help of others. But though the benefits of this life may be much fur- thered by mutual help; since yet those may be better attained to by dominion than by the society of others, I hope no body will doubt, but that men would much more greedily be carried by nature, if all fear were removed, to obtain dominion, than to gain society. We must therefore resolve, that the original of all great and lasting societies consisted not in the mutual goodwill men had towards each other, but in the mutual fear they had of each other.

The cause of mutual fear consists partly in the natural equality of men, partly in their mutual will of hurting: whence it comes to pass, that we can neither expect from others, nor promise to ourselves the least security. For if we look on men full grown, and consider how brittle the frame of our human body is, which perishing, all its strength, vigor, and wisdom itself perisheth with it; and how easy a matter it is, even for the weakest man to kill the strongest: there is no reason why any man, trusting to his own strength, should conceive himself made by nature above others. They are equals, who can do equal things one against the other; but they who can do the greatest things, namely, kill, can do equal things. All men therefore among themselves are by nature equal; the inequality we now discern, hath its spring from the civil law. . . .

Among so many dangers therefore, as the natural lusts of men do daily threaten each other withal, to have a care of one’s self is so far from being a matter scornfully to be looked upon, that one has neither the power nor wish to have done otherwise. For every man is desirous of what is good for him, and shuns what is evil, but chiefly the chiefest of natural evils, which is death; and this he doth by a certain impulsion of nature, no less than that whereby a stone moves downward. It is therefore neither absurd nor reprehensible, neither

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against the dictates of true reason, for a man to use all his endeavors to preserve and de- fend his body and the members thereof from death and sorrows. But that which is not con- trary to right reason, that all men account to be done justly, and with right. Neither by the word right is anything else signified, than that liberty which every man hath to make use of his natural faculties according to right reason. Therefore the first foundation of natural right is this, that every man as much as in him lies endeavor to protect his life and members.

But because it is in vain for a man to have a right to the end, if the right to the neces- sary means be denied him, it follows, that since every man hath a right to preserve himself, he must also be allowed a right to use all the means, and do all the actions, without which he cannot preserve himself.

Now whether the means which he is about to use, and the action he is performing, be necessary to the preservation of his life and members or not, he himself, by the right of nature, must be judge. For if it be contrary to right reason that I should judge of mine own peril, say that another man is judge. Why now, because he judgeth of what concerns me, by the same reason, because we are equal by nature, will I judge also of things which do be- long to him. Therefore it agrees with right reason, that is, it is the right of nature that I judge of his opinion, that is, whether it conduce to my preservation or not.

Nature hath given to everyone a right to all; that is, it was lawful for every man, in the bare state of nature, or before such time as men had engaged themselves by any covenants or bonds, to do what he would, and against whom he thought fit, and to possess, use, and enjoy all what he would, or could get. Now because whatsoever a man would, it therefore seems good to him because he wills it, and either it really doth, or at least seems to him to contribute towards his preservation, (but we have already allowed him to be judge, in the foregoing article, whether it doth or not, insomuch as we are to hold all for necessary what- soever he shall esteem so), and . . . it appears that by the right of nature those things may be done, and must be had, which necessarily conduce to the protection of life and mem- bers, it follows, that in the state of nature, to have all, and do all, is lawful for all. And this is that which is meant by that common saying, nature hath given all to all. From whence we understand likewise, that in the state of nature profit is the measure of right.

But it was the least benefit for men thus to have a common right to all things. For the effects of this right are the same, almost, as if there had been no right at all. For although any man might say of every thing, this is mine, yet could he not enjoy it, by reason of his neighbor, who having equal right and equal power, would pretend the same thing to be his.

If now to this natural proclivity of men, to hurt each other, which they derive from their passions, but chiefly from a vain esteem of themselves, you add, the right of all to all, wherewith one by right invades, the other by right resists, and whence arise perpetual jeal- ousies and suspicions on all hands, and how hard a thing it is to provide against an enemy invading us with an intention to oppress and ruin, though he come with a small number, and no great provision; it cannot be denied but that the natural state of men, before they entered into society, was a mere war, and that not simply, but a war of all men against all men. For what is WAR, but that same time in which the will of contesting by force is fully declared, either by words or deeds?

6. Defending himself against the possible charge of cynicism, Hobbes shows that there are no grounds for objections against self-interested action in the natural state. Social relations are not derived from the original nature of humanity but rather are artificially created. In fact, society is only a means to the furthering of each individual’s interests and happiness. Moreover, Hobbes maintains, the concept of moral obligation has neither meaning nor application in the state of nature. Rather, the basic moral concepts, right and wrong, just and unjust, arise concomitantly with the establishment of a civil society.

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It may seem strange to some man, that has not well weighed these things; that nature should thus dissociate, and render man apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself, when taking a journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws, and public officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse man’s nature in it. The desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions, that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that forbids them: which till laws be made they cannot know: nor can any law be made, till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it. . . .

To this war of every man, against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice, and injustice are none of the faculties neither of the body, nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his senses, and passions. They are qualities, that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only that to be every man’s, that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition, which man by mere nature is actually placed in; though with a possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the passions, partly in his reason.

The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These articles, are they, which otherwise are called the Laws of Nature.

7. The termination of the perpetual warfare of the state of nature is brought about through the instrumentality of reason. First, an individual becomes aware, through rational deliberation, of the need for security. Second, reason discovers those pre- cepts, or “laws of nature,” by which peace may be realized.

A LAW OF NATURE, lex naturalis, is a precept or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that, by which he thinketh it may be best pre- served. For though they that speak of this subject, use to confound jus, and lex, right and law: yet they ought to be distinguished; because RIGHT, consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbear; whereas LAW, determineth, and bindeth to one of them: so that law, and right, dif- fer as much, as obligation, and liberty; which in one and the same matter are inconsistent.

And because the condition of man, as hath been declared in the precedent chapter, is a condition of war of everyone against everyone: in which case everyone is governed by his own reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a right to every thing; even to one another’s body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, how strong or wise soever he be, of living out the time, which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason, that every man, ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule,

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containeth the first, and fundamental law of nature; which is to seek peace, and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we can, to defend ourselves.

From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavor peace, is derived this second law; that a man be willing, when others are so too, as farforth, as for peace, and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself. For as long as every man holdeth this right, of doing any thing he lik- eth; so long are all men in the condition of war. But if other men will not lay down their right, as well as he; then there is no reason for anyone, to divest himself of his: for that were to expose himself to prey, which no man is bound to, rather than to dispose himself to peace.

Right is laid aside, either by simply renouncing it; or by transferring it to another. By simply RENOUNCING; when he cares not to whom the benefit thereof redoundeth. By TRANSFERRING; when he intendeth the benefit thereof to some certain person, or per- sons. And when a man hath in either manner abandoned, or granted away his right; then is he said to be OBLIGED, or BOUND, not to hinder those, to whom such right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and that he ought, and it is his DUTY, not make void that voluntary act of his own: and that such hindrance is INJUSTICE, and INJURY, as being sine jure; the right being before renounced, or transferred. So that injury, or injustice, in the controversies of the world, is somewhat like to that, which in the disputations of scholars is called absurdity. For as it is there called an absurdity, to contradict what one maintained in the beginning: so in the world, it is called injustice, and injury, voluntarily to undo that, which from the beginning he had voluntarily done. . . .

Whensoever a man transferreth his right, or renounceth it; it is either in consideration of some right reciprocally transferred to himself; or for some other good he hopeth for thereby. For it is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself. And therefore there be some rights, which no man can be understood by and words, or other signs, to have abandoned, or transferred. As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he cannot be understood to aim thereby, at any good to himself. The same may be said of wounds, and chains, and imprisonment; both because there is no benefit consequent to such patience; as there is to the patience of suffering another to be wounded, or impris- oned: as also because a man cannot tell, when he seeth men proceed against him by vio- lence, whether they intend his death or not. And lastly the motive, and end for which this renouncing, and transferring of right is introduced, is nothing else but the security of a man’s person, in his life, and in the means of so preserving life, as not to be weary of it. And therefore if a man by words, or other signs, seem to despoil himself of the end, for which those signs were intended; he is not to be understood as if he meant it, or that it was his will; but that he was ignorant of how such words and actions were to be interpreted.

8. When the egoistic nature of humans is taken into account, it is manifest that the first two laws of nature, in and of themselves, are not binding on the individual. Consequently, another law is necessary to make the first two effective.

From that law of nature, by which we are obliged to transfer to another, such rights, as be- ing retained, hinder the peace of mankind, there followeth a third; which is this, that men perform their covenants made: without which, covenants are in vain, and by empty words; and the right of all men to all things remaining, we are still in the condition of war.

And in this law of nature, consisteth the fountain and original of JUSTICE. For where no covenant hath preceded, there hath no right been transferred, and every man has right to everything; and consequently, no action can be unjust. But when a covenant is made,

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then to break it is unjust: and the definition of INJUSTICE, is no other than the not performànce of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust, is just.

But because covenants of mutual trust, where there is a fear of not performance on either part . . . are invalid; though the original of justice be the making of covenants; yet injustice actually there can be none, till the cause of such fear be taken away; which while men are in the natural condition of war, cannot be done. Therefore before the names of just, and unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power, to compel men equally to the performance of their covenants, by the terror of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant; and to make good that propriety, which by mutual contract men acquire, in recompense of the universal right they abandon: and such power there is none before the erection of a commonwealth. And this is also to be gathered out of the ordinary definition of justice in the schools: for they say, that justice is the constant will of giving to every man his own. And therefore where there is no own, that is no propriety, there is no injustice; and where there is no coercive power erected, that is, where there is no commonwealth, there is no propriety; all men having right to all things: therefore where there is not commonwealth, there nothing is unjust. So that the nature of justice, consisteth in keeping of valid covenants: but the validity of covenants begins not but with the constitution of a civil power, sufficient to compel men to keep them: and then it is also that propriety begins.

9. Hobbes concludes that the laws of nature may be summed up in a rule that every- one accepts, the Golden Rule.

These are the laws of nature, dictating peace, for a means of the conservation of men in multitudes; and which only concern the doctrine of civil society. There be other things tending to the destruction of particular men; as drunkenness, and all other parts of intern- perance; which may therefore also be reckoned amongst those things which the law of na- ture hath forbidden; but are not necessary to be mentioned, nor are pertinent enough to this place.

And though this may seem too subtle a deduction of the laws of nature, to be taken notice of by all men; whereof the most part are too busy in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand; yet to leave all men inexcusable, they have been contracted into one easy sum, intelligible even to the meanest capacity; and that is, Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyself; which showeth him, that he has no more to do in learning the laws of nature, but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own, they seem too heavy, to put them into the center part of the balance, and his own into their place, that his own passions, and self-love, may add nothing to the weight; and then there is none of these laws of nature that will appear unto him very reasonable.

10. Reason not only dictates peace and security in society but also prescribes the means by which they can be ensured: a commonwealth instituted by covenant. It was apparent to Hobbes that there must be some civil power to determine and in- terpret what is right and what wrong, what is good and what bad, in society. Such authority must be vested in a single sovereign power—either an individual or an assembly—to prevent the occurrence of jurisdictional disputes between one au- thority and another.

From this institution of a commonwealth are derived all the rights, and faculties of him, or them, on whom sovereign power is conferred by the consent of the people assembled. . . .

First, because they covenant, it is to be understood, they are not obliged by former covenant to anything repugnant hereunto. And consequently they that have already insti- tuted a commonwealth, being thereby bound by covenant, to own the actions, and judg- ments of one, cannot lawfully make a new covenant, amongst themselves, to be obedient to any other, in any thing whatsoever, without his permission. And therefore, they that are subjects to a monarch, cannot without his leave cast off monarchy, and return to the

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confusion of a disunited multitude; nor transfer their person from him that beareth it, to another man, or other assembly of men: for they are bound, every man to every man, to own, and be reputed author of all, that he that already is their sovereign, shall do, and judge fit to be done: so that any one man dissenting, all the rest should break their covenant made to that man, which is injustice: and they have also every man given the sovereignty to him that beareth their person; and therefore if they depose him, they take from him that which is his own, and so again it is injustice. . . .

Secondly, because the right of bearing the person of them all, is given to him they make sovereign, by covenant only of one to another, and not of him to any of them; there can happen no breach of covenant on the part of the sovereign; and consequently none of his subjects, by any pretense of forfeiture, can be freed from his subjection. . . .

Thirdly, because the major part hath by consenting voices declared a sovereign; he that dissented must now consent with the rest; that is, be contented to avow all the actions he shall do, or else justly be destroyed by the rest. For if he voluntarily entered into the con- gregation of them that were assembled, he sufficiently declared thereby his will, and there- fore tacitly convenanted, to stand to what the major part should ordain. . . .

Fourthly, because every subject is by this institution author of all the actions, and judgments of the sovereign instituted; it follows, that whatsoever he doth, it can be no injury to any of his subjects; nor ought he to be by any of them accused of injustice. For he that doth anything by authority from another, doth therein no injury to him by whose authority he acteth: but by this institution of a commonwealth, every particular man is author of all the sovereign doth: and consequently he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign, complaineth of that whereof he himself is author; and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself; no nor himself or injury; because to do injury to one’s self, is impossible. It is true that they that have sovereign power may commit iniquity; but not injustice, or in- jury in the proper signification. . . .

Sixthly, it is annexed to the sovereignty, to be judge of what opinions and doctrines are averse, and what conducing to peace; and consequently, on what occasions, how far, and what men are to be trusted withal, in speaking to multitudes of people; and who shall ex- amine the doctrines of all books before they be published. For the actions of men proceed from their opinions; and in the well-governing of opinions, consisteth the well-governing of men’s actions, in order to their peace, and concord. And though in matter of doctrine, noth- ing ought to be regarded but the truth; yet this is not repugnant to regulating the same by peace. For doctrine repugnant to peace, can no more be true, than peace and concord can be against the law of nature. . . .

Seventhly, is annexed to the sovereignty, the whole power of prescribing the rules, whereby every man may know, what goods he may enjoy, and what actions he may do, without being molested by any of his fellow-subjects; and this is it men call propriety. For before constitution of sovereign power, as hath already been shown, all men had right to all things; which necessarily causeth war: and therefore this propriety, being necessary to peace, and depending on sovereign power, is the act of that power, in order to the public peace. These rules of propriety, or meum and tuum, and of good, evil, lawful, and unlawful in the actions of subjects, are the civil laws; that is to say, the laws of each commonwealth in particular.

11. Hobbes believes that matters of conscience, for example, must be controlled en- tirely by the sovereign. Thus even church affairs should be dominated by the secular rules, “God’s lieutenant on earth.”

I observe the diseases of a commonwealth, that proceed from the poison of seditious doc- trines, whereof one is, That every private man is judge of good and evil actions. This is true in the condition of mere nature, where there are no civil laws; and also under civil govern- ment, in such cases as are not determined by the law. But otherwise, it is manifest, that the

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measure of good and evil actions, is the civil law; and the judge the legislator, who is always representative of the commonwealth. From this false doctrine, men are disposed to debate with themselves, and dispute the commands of the commonwealth; and afterwards to obey, or disobey them, as in their private judgments they shall think fit; whereby the common- wealth is distracted and weakened.

Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is, that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man’s conscience, and his judgment is the same thing, and as the judgment, so also the conscience may be erroneous. Therefore, though he that is subject to no civil law, sinneth in all he does against his conscience, because he has no other rule to follow but his own reason; yet it is not so with him that lives in a commonwealth; because the law is the public conscience, by which he hath already undertaken to be guided. Otherwise in such diversity, as there is of private consciences, which are but private opinions, the com- monwealth must needs be distracted, and no man dare to obey the sovereign power, fur- ther than it shall seem good in his own eyes. . . . There is [another] doctrine, plainly, and directly against the essence of a commonwealth; and it is this, that the sovereign power may be divided. For what is it to divide the power of a commonwealth, but to dissolve it; for powers divided mutually destroy each other. And for these doctrines, men are chiefly be- holding to some of those, that making profession of the laws, endeavor to make them de- pend upon their own learning, and not upon the legislative power.

12. In its ultimate consequences, then, Hobbes’ ethical theory leads to the political doctrine of absolute sovereignty, designed to end the natural war of every person with every other person.

To the care of the sovereign, belongeth the making of good laws. But what is a good law? By a good law, I mean not a just law: for no law can be unjust. The law is made by the sov- ereign power, and all that is done by such power, is warranted, and owned by every one of the people; and that which every man will have so, no man can say is unjust. It is in the laws of the commonwealth, as in the laws of gaming: whatsoever the gamesters all agree on, is injustice to none of them. A good law is that, which is needful, for the good of the people, and withal perspicuous.

For the use of laws, which are but rules authorized, is not to bind the people from all voluntary actions; but to direct and keep them in such a motion, as not to hurt themselves by their own impetuous desires, rashness or indiscretion; as hedges are set, not to stop travelers, but to keep them in their way. And therefore a law that is not needful, having not the true end of the law, is not good. A law may be conceived to be good, when it is for the benefit of the sovereign; though it be not necessary for the people; but it is not so. For the good of the sovereign and people, cannot be separated. It is a weak sovereign, that has weak subjects; and a weak people, whose sovereign wanteth power to rule them at his will. Unnecessary laws are not good laws; but traps for money; which where the right of sover- eign power is acknowledged, are superfluous; and where it is not acknowledged, insufficient to defend the people. . . .

The office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly, consisteth in the end, for which he was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people; to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an account thereof to God, the author of that law, and to none but him. But by safety here, is not meant a bare preser- vation, but also all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger, or hurt to the commonwealth, shall acquire to himself.

And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to individuals, further than their protection from injuries, when they shall complain; but by a general providence, con- tained in public instruction, both of doctrine, and example; and in the making and execut- ing of good laws, to which individual persons may apply their own cases.

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And because, if the essential rights of sovereignty . . . be taken away the common- wealth is thereby dissolved, and every man returneth into the condition, and calamity of a war with every other man, which is the greatest evil that can happen in this life; it is the of- fice of the sovereign, to maintain those rights entire.

Chapter 7

David Hume One of the major areas of dispute in ethical philosophy involves the question of whether the ground for moral distinctions is to be found in reason, on the one hand, or in the passions or emotions, on the other. The issue is as old as the history of philosophy and remains unresolved. Some thinkers, for example, regard morality as essentially a matter of the attitudes and feelings one holds towards one’s fellows, while others (particularly the modern philosophers) believe that they can understand morality by appealing to abstract principles.

These opposing viewpoints exist in virtually every period of human history. Some thinkers dis- play a strong tendency to make morality entirely a matter of the feelings, while others argue that it is purely intellectual. Upon reflection, however, one recognizes that both reason and the emotions are necessary for the formation of moral judgments, although there are disagreements regarding the respective place that should be assigned to each. It is for the purpose of shedding light on this vital question that Hume has undertaken his analysis of morality in An Enquiry Concerning the Princi- ples of Morals (1777).

So what are the practical implications that follow from these opposing viewpoints? What sig- nificance do they have for human life? If all moral judgments come from reason, then they can be true or false. If, on the other hand, they are based entirely on the feelings and sentiments, then there can be no dispute about them. Truth is disputable but taste is not: “what exists in the nature of things is the standard of our judgment; what each man feels within himself is the standard of sentiment.” To repeat: if moral judgments are true in the same sense that mathematical proposi- tions are true, they are not subject to change. The principles of morality would in that case be as eternal and immutable as the laws of mathematics. But if moral judgments are derived from the feelings, then they will not remain constant; they will be as variable as the feelings, moods, and at- titudes of the individuals who make them. Hume’s own position falls squarely on the side of those who place the greater emphasis on feelings rather than reason as the basis for moral judgments.

Although reason is essential for the purpose of supplying the necessary information about what is useful and agreeable, it is insufficient to produce either blame or approbation. Reason may tell us what is an adequate means toward a given end, but it cannot tell us whether a particular end is good or bad. Only feeling or sentiment has the power to do that: approbation or blame, Hume tells us, “cannot be the work of the judgment, but of the heart; and is not a speculative proposition or affirmation, but an active feeling or sentiment.” Sentiment is necessary for moral judgments and by “sentiment” Hume signifies a feeling of approval for that which promotes the happiness of

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humanity and a resentment toward that which produces misery in place of happiness. In support of this claim, Hume calls attention to the following considerations.

The first is that reason is capable of judging only two things: (1) matters of fact and (2) the rela- tions which exist between things. Neither of these suffices to cause approval or disapproval of an action. The fact that a murder has been committed does not by itself constitute any grounds for favorable or unfavorable sentiments. As a mere statement of fact, it is ethically neutral or indifferent. In other words, what makes an act a crime is not something that exists separately from the minds of the people who are thinking about it. That which is praised or blamed is not merely an awareness of the facts. Nor is it a matter of knowing the relationship of the facts to one another. It is only when the mental action or quality creates in the spectator a sentiment of approbation that we call it a vir- tuous act, or when it arouses a sentiment of blame that we call it a vicious one.

Another second consideration concerns the difference between mistakes regarding matters of fact and mistakes regarding morals. To know what a triangle is involves an awareness of the rela- tionship of the parts to one another. Here we can know at once all of the relationships that are rel- evant to the problem. This is not so, however, when we are dealing with morals. When, for example, a person has been killed, we do not know at once all of the relationships that are involved. As a re- sult, we cannot say whether the act was in fact a crime until we discover all of the relevant circum- stances under which the act occurred. We would have to know whether the killing was accidental or voluntary, whether there was a sufficient justification if the act was voluntary, and a multitude of other factors that might have a direct bearing on the nature of the act. It is not until after all of these circumstances are known that the act can be praised or blamed, and even then it is the “heart” that decides rather than the intellect.

In the concluding section of the Enquiry, Hume remarks that common sense alone suffices to make clear that the principles of morality are all based on the approval of what is pleasant and use- ful either to ourselves or to others and the disapproval of what is contrary to these ends. In fact, Hume argues, had it not been for the confusion and lack of clear understanding on the part of cer- tain misguided moral philosophers, there would have been no need to write his treatise on morals.

The fact that Hume places so much emphasis on the matter of approval or disapproval as a criterion of morality has led some critics to reject his doctrine as an essentially selfish one. A careful reading of the Enquiry, however, shows beyond any doubt that this charge is ill-founded. Against those thinkers who insist that all human actions are selfishly motivated, Hume calls attention to the presence in all human beings of a kind of humanitarian sentiment which naturally approves of all that is useful and serviceable to humanity and looks with disfavor on all those actions that are dan- gerous and pernicious. This of course does not mean that selfishness is not an aspect of human na- ture; in fact it is very much a part of human nature and, in many instances, is so much more power- ful than any altruistic or humanitarian element. Just how much more powerful we cannot say, although this suffices, in Hume’s mind at least, to rebut the position of those who hold that the principles of morality are in every instance the expression of a purely selfish concern if it can be shown that there is some spark of friendship for all mankind. This benign fellow-feeling admittedly may be relatively weak, but still it is enough to exercise an important influence on the mind. It is this influence that causes us, when other factors are equal, to “produce a cool preference of what is use- ful and serviceable to mankind, above what is pernicious and dangerous.”

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An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

1. There has been a controversy started of late, much better worth examination, con- cerning the general foundation of Morals; whether they be derived from Reason, or from Sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal sense; whether, like all sound judgment of truth and falsehood, they should be the same to every rational intelligent being; or whether, like the perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on the particular fabric and constitution of the human species. The ancient philosophers, though they often affirm, that virtue is nothing but con- formity to reason, yet, in general, seem to consider morals as deriving their exis- tence from taste and sentiment. On the other hand, our modern enquirers, though they also talk much of the beauty of virtue, and deformity of vice, yet have com- monly endeavored to account for these distinctions by metaphysical reasonings, and by deductions from the most abstract principles of the understanding. Such confusion reigned in these subjects, that an opposition of the greatest consequence could prevail between one system and another, and even in the parts of almost each individual system. . . It must be acknowledged, that both sides of the question are susceptible of spe- cious arguments. Moral distinctions, it may be said, are discernible by pure reason: else, whence the many disputes that reign in common life, as well as in philosophy, with regard to this subject: the long chain of proofs often produced on both sides; the examples cited, the authorities appealed to, the analogies employed, the falla- cies detected, the inferences drawn, and the several conclusions adjusted to their proper principles. Truth is disputable; not taste: what exists in the nature of things is the standard of our judgment; what each man feels within himself is the standard of sentiment. Propositions in geometry may be proved, systems in physics may be controverted; but the harmony of verse, the tenderness of passion, the brilliancy of wit, must give immediate pleasure. No man reasons concerning another’s beauty; but frequently concerning the justice or injustice of his actions. In every criminal trial the first object of the prisoner is to disprove the facts alleged, and deny the ac- tions imputed to him: the second to prove, that, even if these actions were real, they might be justified, as innocent and lawful. It is confessedly by deductions of the understanding, that the first point is ascertained: how can we suppose that a different faculty of the mind is employed in fixing the other? On the other hand, those who would resolve all moral determinations into sentiment, may endeavor to show, that it is impossible for reason ever to draw conclusions of this nature. To virtue, say they, it belongs to be amiable, and vice odious. This forms their very nature or essence. But can reason or argumentation distribute these different epi- thets to any subjects, and pronounce beforehand, that this must produce love, and that hatred? Or what other reason can we ever assign for these affections, but the

From An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume. 1912 reprint of the 1777 edition.

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original fabric and formation of the human mind, which is naturally adapted to re- ceive them?

2. These arguments on each side (and many more might be produced) are so plau- sible, that I am apt to suspect, they may, the one as well as the other, be solid and satisfactory, and that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral determina- tions and conclusions. The final sentence, it is probable, which pronounces char- acters and actions amiable or odious, praise-worthy or blamable; that which stamps on them the mark of honor or infamy, approbation or censure; that which renders morality an active principle and constitutes virtue our happiness, and vice our misery; it is probable, I say, that this final sentence depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has made universal in the whole species. For what else can have an influence of this nature? But in order to pave the way for such a sentiment, and give a proper discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained. Some species of beauty, especially the natural kinds, on their first appearance, command our affection and approbation; and where they fail of this effect, it is impossible for any reasoning to redress their influence, or adapt them better to our taste and sentiment. But in many orders of beauty, particularly those of the finer arts, it is requisite to employ much reason- ing, in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may frequently be cor- rected by argument and reflection. There are just grounds to conclude, that moral beauty partakes much of this latter species, and demands the assistance of our intellectual faculties, in order to give it a suitable influence on the human mind.

3. The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty; and, by proper represen- tations of the deformity of vice and beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one, and embrace the other. But is this ever to be ex- pected from inferences and conclusions of the understanding, which of them- selves have no hold of the affections or set in motion the active powers of men? They discover truths: but where the truths which they discover are indifferent, and beget no desire or aversion, they can have no influence on conduct and behavior. What is honorable, what is fair, what is becoming, what is noble, what is generous, takes possession of the heart, and animates us to embrace and maintain it. What is intelligible, what is evident, what is probable, what is true, procures only the cool assent of the understanding; and gratifying a speculative curiosity, puts an end to our researches. Extinguish all the warm feelings and prepossessions in favor of virtue, and all dis- gust or aversion to vice: render men totally indifferent towards these distinctions; and morality is no longer a practical study, nor has any tendency to regulate our lives and actions.

4. Reason judges either of MATTER OF FACT or of RELATIONS. Enquire then, first, where is that matter of fact which we here call crime; point it out; determine the time of its existence; describe its essence or nature; explain the sense or faculty to which it discovers itself. It resides in the mind of the person who is ungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious of it. But nothing is there, except the passion of ill-will or absolute indifference. You cannot say that these, of them- selves, always, and in all circumstances, are crimes. No, they are only crimes when directed towards persons who have before expressed and displayed good- will towards us. Consequently, we may infer, that the crime of ingratitude is not any particular individual FACT; but arises from a complication of circumstances,

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which, being presented to the spectator, excites the SENTIMENT of blame, by the particular structure and fabric of his mind. This representation, you say, is false. Crime, indeed, consists not in a particular FACT, of whose reality we are assured by reason; but it consists in certain MORAL RELATIONS, discovered by reason, in the same manner as we discover by reason the truths of geometry or algebra. But what are the relations, I ask, of which you here talk? In the case stated above, I see first good-will and good-offices in one person; then ill-will and ill-offices in the other. Between these, there is a relation of CONTRARIETY. Does the crime consist in that relation? But suppose a person bore me ill-will or did me ill-offices; and I, in return, were indifferent towards him, or did him good offices. Here is the same relation of CONTRARIETY; and yet my con- duct is often highly laudable. Twist and turn this matter as much as you will, you can never rest the morality on relation; but must have recourse to the decisions of sentiment. When it is affirmed that two and three are equal to the half of ten, this relation of equality I understand perfectly. I conceive, that if ten be divided into two parts, of which one has as many units as the other; and if any of these parts be compared to two added to three, it will contain as many units as that compound number. But when you draw thence a comparison to moral relations, I own that I am altogether at a loss to understand you. A moral action, a crime, such as ingratitude, is a com- plicated object. Does the morality consist in the relation of its parts to each other? How? After what manner? Specify the relation: be more particular and explicit in your propositions, and you will easily see their falsehood. No, say you, the morality consists in the relation of actions to the rule of right; and they are denominated good or ill, according as they agree or disagree with it. What then is this rule of right? In what does it consist? How is it determined? By reason, you say, which examines the moral relations of actions. So that moral relations are determined by the comparison of action to a rule. And that rule is determined by considering the moral relations of objects. Is not this fine reasoning?

5. The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality is deter- mined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be WHATEVER MENTAL ACTION OR QUALITY GIVES TO A SPECTATOR THE PLEASING SENTIMENT OF APPROBATION; and vice the contrary. We then proceed to examine a plain matter of fact, to wit, what actions have this influence. We consider all the circum- stances in which these actions agree, and thence endeavor to extract some general observations with regard to these sentiments.

6. When a man, at any time, deliberates concerning his own conduct (as, whether he had better, in a particular emergence, assist a brother or a benefactor), he must consider these separate relations, with all the circumstances and situations of the persons, in order to determine the superior duty and obligation; and in order to determine the proportion of lines in any triangle, it is necessary to examine the nature of that figure, and the relation which its several parts bear to each other. But notwithstanding this appearing similarity in the two cases, there is, at bottom, an extreme difference between them. A speculative reasoner concerning triangles or circles considers the several known and given relations of the parts of these figures; and thence infers some unknown relation, which is dependent on the former. But in moral deliberations we must be acquainted beforehand with all the objects, and all their relations to each other; and from a comparison of the whole, fix our choice or approbation. No new fact to be ascertained; no new relation to be discovered. All the circumstances of the case are supposed to be laid before us,

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ere we can fix any sentence of blame or approbation. If any material circumstance be yet unknown or doubtful, we must first employ our inquiry or intellectual facul- ties to assure us of it; and must suspend for a time all moral decision or senti- ment. While we are ignorant whether a man were aggressor or not, how can we determine whether the person who killed him be criminal or innocent? But after every circumstance, every relation is known, the understanding has no further room to operate, nor any object on which it could employ itself. The approbation or blame which then ensues, cannot be the work of the judgment, but of the heart; and is not a speculative proposition or affirmation, but an active feeling or senti- ment. In the disquisitions of the understanding, from known circumstances and relations, we infer some new and unknown. In moral decisions, all the circum- stances and relations must be previously known; and the mind, from the contem- plation of the whole, feels some new impression of affection or disgust, esteem or contempt, approbation or blame. Hence the great difference between a mistake of FACT and one of RIGHT; and hence the reason why the one is commonly criminal and not the other. When Oe- dipus killed Laius, he was ignorant of the relation, and from circumstances, inno- cent and involuntary, formed erroneous opinions concerning the action which he committed. But when Nero killed Agrippina, all the relations between himself and the person, and all the circumstances of the fact, were previously known to him; but the motive of revenge, or fear, or interest, prevailed in his savage heart over the sentiments of duty and humanity. And when we express that detestation against him to which he himself, in a little time, became insensible, it is not that we see any relations, of which he was ignorant; but that, for the rectitude of our disposition, we feel sentiments against which he was hardened from flattery and a long persever- ance in the most enormous crimes. In these sentiments then, not in a discovery of relations of any kind, do all moral determinations consist. Before we can pretend to form any decision of this kind, everything must be known and ascertained on the side of the object or action. Nothing remains but to feel, on our part, some sentiment of blame or approbation; whence we pronounce the action criminal or virtuous.

It may be esteemed, perhaps, a superfluous task to prove, that the benevolent or softer affections are estimable; and wherever they appear, engage the approbation and good-will of mankind. The epithets SOCIABLE, GOOD-NATURED, HUMANE, MERCIFUL, GRATEFUL, FRIENDLY, GENEROUS, BENEFICENT, or their equivalents, are known in all languages, and universally express the highest merit, which HUMAN NATURE is capable of attaining. Where these amiable quali- ties are attended with birth and power and eminent abilities, and display them- selves in the good government or useful instruction of mankind, they seem even to raise the possessors of them above the rank of HUMAN NATURE, and make them approach in some measure to the divine. Exalted capacity, undaunted courage, prosperous success; these may only expose a hero or politician to the envy and ill-will of the public: but as soon as the praises are added of humane and beneficent; when instances are displayed of lenity, tenderness or friendship; envy itself is silent, or joins the general voice of approbation and applause . . . no quali- ties are more entitled to the general good-will and approbation of mankind than beneficence and humanity, friendship and gratitude, natural affection and public spirit, or whatever proceeds from a tender sympathy with others, and a generous concern for our kind and species. These wherever they appear seem to transfuse themselves, in a manner, into each beholder, and to call forth, in their own behalf, the same favorable and affectionate sentiments, which they exert on all around.

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We may observe that, in displaying the praises of any humane, beneficent man, there is one circumstance which never fails to be amply insisted on, namely, the happiness and satisfaction, derived to society from his intercourse and good offices.

8. That Justice is useful to society, and consequently that PART of its merit, at least, must arise from that consideration, it would be a superfluous undertaking to prove. That public utility is the SOLE origin of justice, and that reflections on the beneficial consequences of this virtue are the SOLE foundation of its merit; this proposition, being more curious and important, will better deserve our examina- tion and enquiry. Let us suppose that nature has bestowed on the human race such profuse ABUN- DANCE of all EXTERNAL conveniences, that, without any uncertainty in the event, without any care or industry on our part, every individual finds himself fully pro- vided with whatever his most voracious appetites can want, or luxurious imagina- tion wish or desire. His natural beauty, we shall suppose, surpasses all acquired ornaments: the perpetual clemency of the seasons renders useless all clothes or covering: the raw herbage affords him the most delicious fare; the clear fountain, the richest beverage. No laborious occupation required: no tillage: no navigation. Music, poetry, and contemplation form his sole business: conversation, mirth, and friendship his sole amusement. It seems evident that, in such a happy state, every other social virtue would flourish, and receive tenfold increase; but the cautious, jealous virtue of justice would never once have been dreamed of. For what purpose make a partition of goods, where everyone has already more than enough? Why give rise to property, where there cannot possibly be any injury? Why call this ob- ject MINE, when upon the seizing of it by another, I need but stretch out my hand to possess myself to what is equally valuable? Justice, in that case, being totally useless, would be an idle ceremonial, and could never possibly have place in the catalogue of virtues . . . Again; suppose, that, though the necessities of human race continue the same as at present, yet the mind is so enlarged, and so replete with friendship and generos- ity, that every man has the utmost tenderness for every man, and feels no more concern for his own interest than for that of his fellows; it seems evident, that the use of justice would, in this case, be suspended by such an extensive benevolence, nor would the divisions and barriers of property and obligation have ever been thought of. Why should I bind another, by a deed or promise, to do me any good office, when I know that he is already prompted, by the strongest inclination, to seek my happiness, and would, of himself, perform the desired service; except the hurt, he thereby receives, be greater than the benefit accruing to me? in which case, he knows, that, from my innate humanity and friendship, I should be the first to oppose myself to his imprudent generosity. Why raise landmarks between my neighbor’s field and mine, when my heart has made no division between our inter- ests; but shares all his joys and sorrows with the same force and vivacity as if origi- nally my own? Every man, upon this supposition, being a second self to another, would trust all his interests to the discretion of every man; without jealousy, without partition, without distinction. And the whole human race would form only one fam- ily; where all would lie in common, and be used freely, without regard to property; but cautiously too, with as entire regard to the necessities of each individual, as if our own interests were most intimately concerned . . . To make this truth more evident, let us reverse the foregoing suppositions; and car- rying everything to the opposite extreme, consider what would be the effect of these new situations. Suppose a society to fall into such want of all common

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necessaries, that the utmost frugality and industry cannot preserve the greater number from perishing, and the whole from extreme misery; it will readily, I be- lieve, be admitted, that the strict laws of justice are suspended, in such a pressing emergence, and give place to the stronger motives of necessity and self-preserva- tion. Is it any crime, after a shipwreck, to seize whatever means or instrument of safety one can lay hold of, without regard to former limitations of property? Or if a city besieged were perishing with hunger; can we imagine, that men will see any means of preservation before them, and lose their lives, from a scrupulous regard to what, in other situations, would be the rules of equity and justice? The use and tendency of that virtue is to procure happiness and security, by preserving order in society: but where the society is ready to perish from extreme necessity, no greater evil can be dreaded from violence and injustice; and every man may now provide for himself by all the means, which prudence can dictate, or humanity permit. The public, even in less urgent necessities, opens granaries, without the consent of pro- prietors; as justly supposing, that the authority of magistracy may, consistent with equity, extend so far: but were any number of men to assemble, without the tie of laws or civil jurisdiction; would an equal partition of bread in a famine, though ef- fected by power and even violence, be regarded as criminal or injurious? Suppose likewise, that it should be a virtuous man’s fate to fall into the society of ruffians, remote from the protection of laws and government; what conduct must he embrace in that melancholy situation? He sees such a desperate rapaciousness prevail; such a disregard to equity, such contempt of order, such stupid blindness to future consequences, as must immediately have the most tragic conclusion, and must terminate in destruction to the greater number, and in a total dissolution of society to the rest. He, meanwhile, can have no other expedient than to arm him- self, to whomever the sword he seizes, or the buckler, may belong: To make provi- sion of all means of defense and security: And his particular regard to justice being no longer of use to his own safety or that of others, he must consult the dictates of self-preservation alone, without concern for those who no longer merit his care and attention.

9. Thus, the rules of equity or justice depend entirely on the particular state and con- dition in which men are placed, and owe their origin and existence to that utility, which results to the public from their strict and regular observance. Reverse, in any considerable circumstance, the condition of men: Produce extreme abun- dance or extreme necessity: Implant in the human breast perfect moderation and humanity, or perfect rapaciousness and malice: By rendering justice totally USELESS, you thereby totally destroy its essence, and suspend its obligation upon mankind. The common situation of society is a medium amidst all these ex- tremes. We are naturally partial to ourselves, and to our friends; but are capable of learning the advantage resulting from a more equitable conduct. Few enjoyments are given us from the open and liberal hand of nature; but by art, labor, and indus- try, we can extract them in great abundance. Hence the ideas of property become necessary in all civil society: Hence justice derives its usefulness to the public: And hence alone arises its merit and moral obligation.

10. It seems a happiness in the present theory, that it enters not into that vulgar dispute concerning the DEGREES of benevolence or self-love, which prevail in human nature; a dispute which is never likely to have any issue, both because men, who have taken part, are not easily convinced, and because the phenomena, which can be produced on either side, are so dispersed, so uncertain, and subject to so many interpretations, that it is scarcely possible accurately to compare them, or draw from them any determinate inference or conclusion. It is sufficient

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for our present purpose, if it be allowed, what surely, without the greatest absur- dity cannot be disputed, that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and serpent. Let these generous sentiments be supposed ever so weak; let them be insufficient to move even a hand or finger of our body, they must still direct the determinations of our mind, and where everything else is equal, produce a cool preference of what is useful and serviceable to mankind, above what is pernicious and danger- ous. A MORAL DISTINCTION, therefore, immediately arises . . . The notion of morals implies some sentiment common to all mankind, which rec- ommends the same object to general approbation, and makes every man, or most men, agree in the same opinion or decision concerning it. It also implies some sen- timent, so universal and comprehensive as to extend to all mankind, and render the actions and conduct, even of the persons the most remote, an object of applause or censure, according as they agree or disagree with that rule of right which is estab- lished. These two requisite circumstances belong alone to the sentiment of human- ity here insisted on. The other passions produce in every breast, many strong senti- ments of desire and aversion, affection and hatred; but these neither are felt so much in common, nor are so comprehensive, as to be the foundation of any gen- eral system and established theory of blame or approbation. When a man denominates another his ENEMY, his RIVAL, his ANTAGONIST, his ADVERSARY, he is understood to speak the language of self-love, and to express sentiments, peculiar to himself, and arising from his particular circumstances and situation. But when he bestows on any man the epithets of VICIOUS or ODIOUS or DEPRAVED, he then speaks another language, and expresses sentiments, in which he expects all his audience are to concur with him. He must here, therefore, depart from his private and particular situation, and must choose a point of view, common to him with others; he must move some universal principle of the human frame, and touch a string to which all mankind have an accord and symphony. If he mean, therefore, to express that this man possesses qualities, whose tendency is perni- cious to society, he has chosen this common point of view, and has touched the principle of humanity, in which every man, in some degree, concurs. While the hu- man heart is compounded of the same elements as at present, it will never be wholly indifferent to public good, nor entirely unaffected with the tendency of char- acters and manners. And though this affection of humanity may not generally be esteemed so strong as vanity or ambition, yet, being common to all men, it can alone be the foundation of morals, or of any-general system of blame or praise. One man’s ambition is not another’s ambition, nor will the same event or object satisfy both; but the humanity of one man is the humanity of every one, and the same object touches this passion in all human creatures. What more, therefore, can we ask to distinguish the sentiments, dependent on hu- manity, from those connected with any other passion, or to satisfy us, why the former are the origin of morals, not the latter? Whatever conduct gains my appro- bation, by touching my humanity, procures also the applause of all mankind, by affecting the same principle in them; but what serves my avarice or ambition pleases these passions in me alone, and affects not the avarice and ambition of the rest of mankind. There is no circumstance of conduct in any man, provided it have a beneficial tendency, that is not agreeable to my humanity, however remote the person.

11. Are not justice, fidelity, honor, veracity, allegiance, chastity, esteemed solely on account of their tendency to promote the good of society? Is not that tendency

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inseparable from humanity, benevolence, lenity, generosity, gratitude, moderation, tenderness, friendship, and all the other social virtues? Can it possibly be doubted that industry, discretion, frugality, secrecy, order, perseverance, forethought, judg- ment, and this whole class of virtues and accomplishments, of which many pages would not contain the catalogue; can it be doubted, I say, that the tendency of these qualities to promote the interest and happiness of their possessor, is the sole foundation of their merit? Who can dispute that a mind, which supports a perpet- ual serenity and cheerfulness, a noble dignity and undaunted spirit, a tender affec- tion and good-will to all around; as it has more enjoyment within itself, is also a more animating and rejoicing spectacle, than if dejected with melancholy, tor- mented with anxiety, irritated with rage, or sunk into the most abject baseness and degeneracy? And as to the qualities, immediately AGREEABLE to OTHERS, they speak sufficiently for themselves; and he must be unhappy, indeed, either in his own temper, or in his situation and company, who has never perceived the charms of a facetious wit or flowing affability, of a delicate modesty or decent genteelness of address and manner . . . I must confess, that this enumeration puts the matter in so strong a light, that I can- not, at PRESENT, be more assured of any truth, which I learn from reasoning and argument, than that personal merit consists entirely in the usefulness or agreeable- ness of qualities to the person himself possessed of them, or to others, who have any intercourse with him.

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Chapter 8

J. S. Mill

SECTIONS 1 AND 2 Mill aims to dispel the many misconceptions about the ethical teaching known as “Utilitarianism.” In particular: (1) the view of some critics that Utilitarian morality starkly opposes all forms of plea- sure, even those civilizing pleasures involving “beauty,” “ornament,” and “amusement;” and (2) the contrary assertion propounded by others that under Utilitarian doctrine, the whole of life is reduced to the mere pursuit of frivolous and fleeting pleasures.

Utilitarianism properly understood, Mill contends, may be summed up as follows: The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest-Happiness Prin-

ciple, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By ‘happiness,’ is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by ‘unhappiness,’ pain, and the privation of pleasure.

SECTIONS 3–5 Some critics have argued that the principle of utility is a “swinish doctrine” (“swinish” because, by identifying happiness with pleasure and unhappiness with pain, it may promote a life dedicated to vulgar hedonism). Mill counters this criticism in two ways: first, by observing that such an “accusa- tion supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capa- ble;” and second, by pointing out that not all pleasures are to be valued equally. He maintains that there are clearly higher and lower pleasures, corresponding to the higher and lower faculties of the human being. A pleasure, Mill argues, is of higher quality if people would choose it over a different pleasure even if it were accompanied by discomfort, and if they would not substitute a greater amount of the other pleasure for it. Furthermore, it is an “unquestionable fact” that, given equal access to all kinds of pleasures, people will prefer those that satisfy their “higher” faculties. A human being would not choose to become an animal, nor would an educated person choose to become ignorant. Thus, although deep thinkers tend to suffer more in life (because they understand the limitations of the world better than most people), they would never choose a lower form of

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existence, preferring rather to maintain their dignity as rational creatures. As Mill memorably states, “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”

But suppose the vulgar hedonist were to rebuke Mill by demanding to know: “what makes you qualified to say that a life of gluttonous dissipation is qualitatively inferior to a life of serene and tran- quil contemplation?” Mill would respond that only those who have experienced both kinds of plea- sures are capable of properly determining the superiority of one kind of pleasure over another: “And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”

Mill then rebuts the objection that “many who are capable of the higher pleasures, occasion- ally, under the influence of temptation, postpone them to the lower.” How is it possible for some- one who has experienced both the higher and the lower pleasures to deliberately choose the lower? Does this not contradict Mill’s earlier statement that the competent judge of pleasures will prefer those which appeal to one’s higher faculties to those that appeal to the lower? Mill responds that those who abandon the higher pleasures for the lower ones are really incapable of enjoying the higher kind, and hence incapable of truly discriminating between the two, so that their judgments are of little value. There are two reasons, Mill explains, why someone might choose vulgar hedo- nism over the higher order pleasures. The first is that the individual simply lacks the capacity or in- clination to enjoy the nobler pleasures. The second is that the individual, although he may have the inherent capacity to participate in the higher activities that produce pleasure, is prohibited from doing so by lack of opportunity. Consider the following:

“Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have

not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior

pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the

only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer

capable of enjoying.”

SECTION 6 Mill then restates the “greatest happiness principle”: the utilitarian standard, he avers, “is not the agent’s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether . . .” Now even if it is the case that a “noble character” (i.e., someone who makes great sacrifices on behalf of others) may not always be happy, for all his nobility (especially if he makes the ultimate sacrifice), neverthe- less “there can be no doubt that [he] makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it.” Utilitarianism, therefore, can only achieve its ultimate goal (the greatest happiness of the greatest number) “by the general cultivation of nobleness of character,” that is, through the inculcation of noble habits and mores, “even if each individual were only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is concerned, were a sheer deduction from the benefit.” So the principle or standard of all human action is no less than “an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality . . .” not for one or a few persons, but for all mankind. Thus, the willingness to sacrifice one’s happiness for that of others is, in Mill’s eyes, the highest virtue.

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SECTION 7 Mill takes issue with those who would argue that human beings are incapable of happiness. This may be true if by happiness we mean “a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement” which, he admits, can at best last hours or days (“with some intermissions”), “and is the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame.” Happiness as Mill understands it consists rather of

“moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various

pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as

the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of

bestowing.” Thus happiness seems to require a surplus, throughout the whole of life, of pleasure over pain, in which the active pleasures (i.e., those demanding exertion of the higher faculties) predominate over the passive pleasures (i.e., those consisting of mere passive enjoyment of external stimuli), accom- panied by moderate and realistic expectations of life. The principal sources of unhappiness, on the other hand, are selfishness and a lack of mental cultivation. Yet it is fully within most people’s ca- pacities to be happy, Mill claims, if their education fosters the appropriate habits and values.

SECTION 8 Utilitarian morality refuses to recognize that self-sacrifice is intrinsically good. Rather, it is good only insofar as it secures the good of others, “either of mankind collectively, or of individuals within the limits imposed by the collective interests of mankind.” Mill reminds us that “the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all concerned.” Christ’s Golden Rule embodies this principle: “to do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.”

But how can we as a society come to exemplify so lofty an ideal? For Mill, the only way utilitar- ian morality can shape the conscience of a people is by means of laws and social arrangements that would “place the happiness, or . . . the interest, of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and secondly that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every indi- vidual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole . . .” Thus, through a carefully crafted education system, social and legal framework, Mill believes human be- ings’ thoughts, opinions, and feelings can be so shaped and contoured as to give rise to a Utilitarian society wherein each member identifies his own happiness with that of the whole, a society in which the distinction between “mine” and “yours,” “public” and “private,” breaks down entirely, thereby producing a harmonious collectivity governed not by callow selfishness, but rather by an almost reflexive concern for one’s fellow man.

SECTION 9 But, is it not expecting too much to require that people should always act from a desire to promote the interests of society rather than their own private interest? Mill concedes that human nature may in fact be more inclined to selfishness than to altruism, but this in no way invalidates his thesis. The greatest happiness principle is the standard by which conduct is to be judged and sanctioned,

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although it is in no way essential as a motive for conduct. Mill is careful to distinguish the psycho- logical question of human motivation from the more critical, ethical issues of obligation and evaluation.

SECTIONS 10–11 In these sections, Mill addresses the issue of sanctions, or the inherent consequences for those who break a set of rules. He argues that the principle of utility has two types of sanctions: external and internal. External sanctions may take the form of “peer pressure,” that is, the desire for praise and approval and the fear of blame or disapproval, as well as the fear of God’s wrath. Mill notes that these motives could just as easily be associated with utilitarianism as with any other ethical system. Internal sanctions, on the other hand, derive from one’s conscience, or one’s “feeling for humanity,” and provide the ultimate sanction for utilitarian morality. The conscience consists of negative, un- comfortable feelings that arise whenever one violates duty. Such feelings can influence human con- duct, but only if one’s moral nature has been sufficiently cultivated through the right kind of up- bringing and education. Indeed, internal sanctions are far more powerful than any external one precisely because the moral feelings on which they are based develop naturally rather than being imposed from without. And, as the “feeling for humanity” is a fact of human nature, there is no reason to think that it cannot be cultivated “in connection with the utilitarian, as with any other rule of morals.”

SECTIONS 12–13 Whether this inner “feeling for humanity” is inborn or acquired, Mill contends, is irrelevant, al- though he clearly favors the possibility that it is acquired through moral education. That the moral feelings are likely acquired rather than innate does not, however, imply that they are somehow un- natural. On the contrary: “the moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural outgrowth from it; capable, like [the other acquired capacities, e.g., speaking and reasoning], in a certain small de- gree, of springing up spontaneously; and susceptible of being brought by cultivation to a high de- gree of development.”

Thus Mill argues that utilitarianism has its origins in the social nature of human beings, in their desire to be in harmony with their fellow man, and in their aversion toward the disapproval of their peers and their God. Moreover, society ought to cultivate this natural sentiment through education and good laws. Although Mill admits that the “feeling for humanity” is often overshadowed by self- ish feelings, for those who have it, it does take on the character and legitimacy of a natural senti- ment. The utility principle’s sanctions are therefore based on the internal sanction of human con- science, which it is the duty of laws and education to cultivate.

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UTILITARIANISM JOHN STUART MILL

WHAT UTILITARIANISM IS. A passing remark is all that needs be given to the ignorant blunder of supposing that those who stand up for utility as the test of right and wrong, use the term in that restricted and merely colloquial sense in which utility is opposed to pleasure. An apology is due to the philosophical opponents of utilitarianism, for even the momentary appearance of con- founding them with any one capable of so absurd a misconception; which is the more ex- traordinary, inasmuch as the contrary accusation, of referring everything to pleasure, and that too in its grossest form, is another of the common charges against utilitarianism: and, as has been pointedly remarked by an able writer, the same sort of persons, and often the very same persons, denounce the theory “as impracticably dry when the word utility pre- cedes the word pleasure, and as too practicably voluptuous when the word pleasure pre- cedes the word utility.” Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every writer, from Epicurus to Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility, meant by it, not something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with ex- emption from pain; and instead of opposing the useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have always declared that the useful means these, among other things. Yet the common herd, including the herd of writers, not only in newspapers and periodicals, but in books of weight and pretension, are perpetually falling into this shallow mistake. Having caught up the word utilitarian, while knowing nothing whatever about it but its sound, they habitually express by it the rejection, or the neglect, of pleasure in some of its forms; of beauty, of ornament, or of amusement. Nor is the term thus ignorantly misapplied solely in disparage- ment, but occasionally in compliment; as though it implied superiority to frivolity and the mere pleasures of the moment. And this perverted use is the only one in which the word is popularly known, and the one from which the new generation are acquiring their sole no- tion of its meaning. Those who introduced the word, but who had for many years discontin- ued it as a distinctive appellation, may well feel themselves called upon to resume it, if by doing so they can hope to contribute anything towards rescuing it from this utter degradation.

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happi- ness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded—namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as nu- merous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inher- ent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

From Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill, 1879.

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Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them in some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure—no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit— they designate as utterly mean and groveling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine, to whom the followers of Epicurus were, at a very early period, contemptuously likened; and modern holders of the doctrine are occasionally made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its German, French, and English assailants.

When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this supposition were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation; for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely be- cause a beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made con- scious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratifica- tion. I do not, indeed, consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in draw- ing out their scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle. To do this in any sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect; of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, &c., of the former—that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recog- nize the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than oth- ers. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.

If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feel- ing of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweigh- ing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account.

Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what they possess more than he, for the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in com- mon with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme,

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that to escape from it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesir- able in their own eyes. A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and is certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. We may give what explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which mankind are capa- ble; we may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the love of power, or to the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it: but its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them. Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of happiness-that the superior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior- confounds the two very different ideas, of happiness, and content. It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly-endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed uncon- scious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those im- perfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.

It may be objected, that many who are capable of the higher pleasures, occasionally, under the influence of temptation, postpone them to the lower. But this is quite compatible with a full appreciation of the intrinsic superiority of the higher. Men often, from infirmity of character, make their election for the nearer good, though they know it to be the less valu- able; and this no less when the choice is between two bodily pleasures, than when it is be- tween bodily and mental. They pursue sensual indulgences to the injury of health, though perfectly aware that health is the greater good. It may be further objected, that many who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, as they advance in years sink into indolence and selfishness. But I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change, voluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already be- come incapable of the other. Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very ten- der plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favorable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying. It may be questioned whether anyone who has remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly pre- ferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both.

From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no appeal. On a question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from its

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consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final. And there needs be the less hesitation to accept this judgment respecting the quality of pleasures, since there is no other tribunal to be referred to even on the question of quantity. What means are there of determining which is the acutest of two pains, or the more intense of two pleasurable sen- sations, except the general suffrage of those who are familiar with both? Neither pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous with pleasure. What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and judgment of the experienced? When, therefore, those feelings and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher faculties to be preferable in kind, apart from the question of intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from the higher faculties, is susceptible, they are entitled on this subject to the same regard.

I have dwelt on this point, as being a necessary part of a perfectly just conception of Utility or Happiness, considered as the directive rule of human conduct. But it is by no means an indispensable condition to the acceptance of the utilitarian standard; for that standard is not the agent’s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the hap- pier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each individual were only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is concerned, were a sheer deduction from the benefit. But the bare enunciation of such an absurdity as this last, renders refutation superfluous.

According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, as above explained, the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality; the test of quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by those who, in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their habits of self- consciousness and self-observation, are best furnished with the means of comparison. This, being, according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is necessarily also the standard of morality; which may accordingly be defined, the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which an existence such as has been described might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but, so far as the nature of things admits, to the whole sentient creation . . .

When, however, it is thus positively asserted to be impossible that human life should be happy, the assertion, if not something like a verbal quibble, is at least an exaggeration. If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash of enjoy- ment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of this the philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have been for- tunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the name of happiness. And such an existence is even now the lot of many, during some considerable portion of their lives. The present wretched education, and wretched social arrangements, are the only real hindrance to its being attainable by almost all.

The objectors perhaps may doubt whether human beings, if taught to consider happi- ness as the end of life, would be satisfied with such a moderate share of it. But great

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numbers of mankind have been satisfied with much less. The main constituents of a satis- fied life appear to be two, either of which by itself is often found sufficient for the purpose: tranquility, and excitement. With much tranquility, many find that they can be content with very little pleasure: with much excitement, many can reconcile themselves to a consider- able quantity of pain. There is assuredly no inherent impossibility in enabling even the mass of mankind to unite both; since the two are so far from being incompatible that they are in natural alliance, the prolongation of either being a preparation for, and exciting a wish for, the other . . . When people who are tolerably fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but themselves. To those who have neither public nor private affections, the excitements of life are much curtailed, and in any case dwindle in value as the time ap- proaches when all selfish interests must be terminated by death: while those who leave af- ter them objects of personal affection, and especially those who have also cultivated a fel- low-feeling with the collective interests of mankind, retain as lively an interest in life on the eve of death as in the vigor of youth and health. Next to selfishness, the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory, is want of mental cultivation. A cultivated mind—I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties—finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the objects of nature, the achieve- ments of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways of mankind past and present, and their prospects in the future.

Meanwhile, let utilitarians never cease to claim the morality of self-devotion as a pos- session which belongs by as good a right to them, as either to the Stoic or to the Transcen- dentalist. The utilitarian morality does recognize in human beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the good of others. It only refuses to admit that the sacrifice is itself a good. A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of hap- piness, it considers as wasted. The only self-renunciation which it applauds, is devotion to the happiness, or to some of the means of happiness, of others; either of mankind collec- tively, or of individuals within the limits imposed by the collective interests of mankind.

I must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the justice to acknowledge, that the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a dis- interested and benevolent spectator. In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. As the means of making the nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin, first, that laws and social arrangements should place the happiness, or (as speaking practically it may be called) the interest, of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and secondly, that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human charac- ter, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole; especially between his own happiness and the practice of such modes of conduct, negative and positive, as regard for the universal happiness prescribes: so that not only he may be unable to conceive the possibility of happiness to himself, consistently with conduct opposed to the general good, but also that a direct impulse to promote the general good may be in every individual one of the habitual motives of action, and the sentiments connected therewith may fill a large and prominent place in every human being’s sentient existence. If the impugners of the utilitarian morality represented it to their own minds in this its true character, I know not what recommendation possessed by any other morality they could possibly affirm to be wanting to it: what more beautiful or more exalted developments of human nature any

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other ethical system can be supposed to foster, or what springs of action, not accessible to the utilitarian, such systems rely on for giving effect to their mandates . . .

They say it is exacting too much to require that people shall always act from the in- ducement of promoting the general interests of society. But this is to mistake the very meaning of a standard of morals, and to confound the rule of action with the motive of it. It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty; on the contrary, ninety-nine hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and rightly so done, if the rule of duty does not condemn them. It is the more unjust to utilitari- anism that this particular misapprehension should be made a ground of objection to it, in- asmuch as utilitarian moralists have gone beyond almost all others in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent. He who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble: he who betrays the friend that trusts him, is guilty of a crime, even if his object be to serve another friend to whom he is under greater obligations. But to speak only of actions done from the motive of duty, and in direct obedience to principle: it is a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of thought, to conceive it as implying that people should fix their minds upon so wide a generality as the world, or society at large. The great majority of good actions are intended, not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up; and the thoughts of the most virtuous man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular persons concerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in benefiting them he is not violating the rights—that is, the legitimate and authorized expectations—of anyone else. The multiplication of happiness is, according to the utilitar- ian ethics, the object of virtue: the occasions on which any person (except one in a thou- sand) has it in his power to do this on an extended scale, in other words, to be a public benefactor, are but exceptional; and on these occasions alone is he called on to consider public utility; in every other case, private utility, the interest or happiness of some few per- sons, is all he has to attend to. Those alone the influence of whose actions extends to soci- ety in general, need concern themselves habitually about so large an object. In the case of abstinences indeed—of things which people forbear to do, from moral considerations, though the consequences in the particular case might be beneficial—it would be unworthy of an intelligent agent not to be consciously aware that the action is of a class which, if practiced generally, would be generally injurious, and that this is the ground of the obliga- tion to abstain from it. The amount of regard for the public interest implied in this recogni- tion, is no greater than is demanded by every system of morals; for they all enjoin to ab- stain from whatever is manifestly pernicious to society . . .

The question is often asked, and properly so, in regard to any supposed moral standard—What is its sanction? what are the motives to obey it? or more specifically, what is the source of its obligation? whence does it derive its binding force? It is a necessary part of moral philosophy to provide the answer to this question; which, though frequently as- suming the shape of an objection to the utilitarian morality, as if it had some special appli- cability to that above others, really arises in regard to all standards. It arises, in fact, when- ever a person is called on to adopt a standard or refer morality to any basis on which he has not been accustomed to rest it. For the customary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory; and when a person is asked to believe that this morality derives its obligation from some general principle round which custom has not thrown the same halo, the assertion is to him a paradox; the supposed corollaries seem to have a more bind- ing force than the original theorem; the superstructure seems to stand better without, than with, what is represented as its foundation. He says to himself, I feel that I am bound not to

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rob or murder, betray or deceive; but why am I bound to promote the general happiness? If my own happiness lies in something else, why may I not give that the preference?

The principle of utility either has, or there is no reason why it might not have, all the sanctions which belong to any other system of morals. Those sanctions are either external or internal. Of the external sanctions it is not necessary to speak at any length. They are, the hope of favour and the fear of displeasure from our fellow creatures or from the Ruler of the Universe, along with whatever we may have of sympathy or affection for them or of love and awe of Him, inclining us to do His will independently of selfish consequences. There is evidently no reason why all these motives for observance should not attach themselves to the utilitarian morality, as completely and as powerfully as to any other. Indeed, those of them which refer to our fellow creatures are sure to do so, in proportion to the amount of general intelligence; for whether there be any other ground of moral obligation than the general happiness or not, men do desire happiness; and however imperfect may be their own practice, they desire and commend all conduct in others towards themselves, by which they think their happiness is promoted. With regard to the religious motive, if men believe, as most profess to do, in the goodness of God, those who think that conduciveness to the general happiness is the essence, or even only the criterion, of good, must necessarily be- lieve that it is also that which God approves. The whole force therefore of external reward and punishment, whether physical or moral, and whether proceeding from God or from our fellow men, together with all that the capacities of human nature admit, of disinterested devotion to either, become available to enforce the utilitarian morality, in proportion as that morality is recognized; and the more powerfully, the more the appliances of education and general cultivation are bent to the purpose.

So far as to external sanctions. The internal sanction of duty, whatever our standard of duty may be, is one and the same—a feeling in our own mind; a pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty, which in properly cultivated moral natures rises, in the more serious cases, into shrinking from it as an impossibility. This feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty, and not with some particular form of it, or with any of the merely accessory circumstances, is the essence of Conscience; though in that complex phenomenon as it actually exists, the simple fact is in general all encrusted over with collateral associations, derived from sympathy, from love, and still more from fear; from all the forms of religious feeling; from the recollections of childhood and of all our past life; from self-esteem, desire of the esteem of others, and occasionally even self- abasement. This extreme complication is, I apprehend, the origin of the sort of mystical character which, by a tendency of the human mind of which there are many other exam- ples, is apt to be attributed to the idea of moral obligation, and which leads people to believe that the idea cannot possibly attach itself to any other objects than those which, by a supposed mysterious law, are found in our present experience to excite it. Its binding force, however, consists in the existence of a mass of feeling which must be broken through in order to do what violates our standard of right, and which, if we do nevertheless violate that standard, will probably have to be encountered afterwards in the form of remorse. Whatever theory we have of the nature or origin of conscience, this is what essentially con- stitutes it.

The ultimate sanction, therefore, of all morality (external motives apart) being a sub- jective feeling in our own minds, I see nothing embarrassing to those whose standard is utility, in the question, what is the sanction of that particular standard? We may answer, the same as of all other moral standards—the conscientious feelings of mankind. Undoubtedly this sanction has no binding efficacy on those who do not possess the feelings it appeals to; but neither will these persons be more obedient to any other moral principle than to the utilitarian one. On them morality of any kind has no hold but through the external sanc- tions. Meanwhile the feelings exist, a fact in human nature, the reality of which, and the great power with which they are capable of acting on those in whom they have been duly

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cultivated, are proved by experience. No reason has ever been shown why they may not be cultivated to as great intensity in connection with the utilitarian, as with any other rule of morals . . .

It is not necessary, for the present purpose, to decide whether the feeling of duty is in- nate or implanted. Assuming it to be innate, it is an open question to what objects it natu- rally attaches itself; for the philosophic supporters of that theory are now agreed that the intuitive perception is of principles of morality, and not of the details. If there be anything innate in the matter, I see no reason why the feeling which is innate should not be that of regard to the pleasures and pains of others. If there is any principle of morals which is intui- tively obligatory, I should say it must be that. If so, the intuitive ethics would coincide with the utilitarian, and there would be no further quarrel between them. Even as it is, the intui- tive moralists, though they believe that there are other intuitive moral obligations, do al- ready believe this to be one; for they unanimously hold that a large portion of morality turns upon the consideration due to the interests of our fellow creatures. Therefore, if the belief in the transcendental origin of moral obligation gives any additional efficacy to the internal sanction, it appears to me that the utilitarian principle has already the benefit of it.

On the other hand, if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but ac- quired, they are not for that reason the less natural. It is natural to man to speak, to reason, to build cities, to cultivate the ground, though these are acquired faculties. The moral feel- ings are not indeed a part of our nature, in the sense of being hi any perceptible degree present in all of us; but this, unhappily, is a fact admitted by those who believe the most strenuously in their transcendental origin. Like the other acquired capacities above referred to, the moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural outgrowth from it; capable, like them, in a certain small degree, of springing up spontaneously; and susceptible of being brought by cultivation to a high degree of development. Unhappily it is also susceptible, by a sufficient use of the external sanctions and of the force of early impressions, of being cul- tivated in almost any direction: so that there is hardly anything so absurd or so mischievous that it may not, by means of these influences, be made to act on the human mind with all the authority of conscience. To doubt that the same potency might be given by the same means to the principle of utility, even if it had no foundation in human nature, would be fly- ing in the face of all experience.

But moral associations which are wholly of artificial creation, when intellectual culture goes on, yield by degrees to the dissolving force of analysis: and if the feeling of duty, when associated with utility, would appear equally arbitrary; if there were no leading department of our nature, no powerful class of sentiments, with which that association would harmo- nize, which would make us feel it congenial, and incline us not only to foster it in others (for which we have abundant interested motives), but also to cherish it in ourselves; if there were not, in short, a natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality, it might well happen that this association also, even after it had been implanted by education, might be analyzed away.

But there is this basis of powerful natural sentiment; and this it is which, when once the general happiness is recognized as the ethical standard, will constitute the strength of the utilitarian morality. This firm foundation is that of the social feelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our fellow creatures, which is already a powerful principle in human na- ture, and happily one of those which tend to become stronger, even without express incul- cation, from the influences of advancing civilization . . .

The deeply-rooted conception which every individual even now has of himself as a social being, tends to make him feel it one of his natural wants that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures. If differences of opinion and of mental culture make it impossible for him to share many of their actual feelings— perhaps make him denounce and defy those feelings—he still needs to be conscious that his real aim and theirs do not conflict; that he is not opposing himself to what they really

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wish for, namely, their own good, but is, on the contrary, promoting it. This feeling in most individuals is much inferior in strength to their selfish feelings, and is often wanting alto- gether. But to those who have it, it possesses all the characters of a natural feeling. It does not present itself to their minds as a superstition of education, or a law despotically im- posed by the power of society, but as an attribute which it would not be well for them to be without. This conviction is the ultimate sanction of the greatest-happiness morality. This it is which makes any mind, of well-developed feelings, work with, and not against, the out- ward motives to care for others, afforded by what I have called the external sanctions; and when those sanctions are wanting, or act in an opposite direction, constitutes in itself a powerful internal binding force, in proportion to the sensitiveness and thoughtfulness of the character; since few but those whose mind is a moral blank, could bear to lay out their course of life on the plan of paying no regard to others except so far as their own private interest compels.

Unit 3

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Chapter 9

Nietzsche

THE MADMAN AND THE DEATH OF GOD Nietzsche here refers to the gradual erosion of religious belief already visible in late nineteenth- century Europe. The belief in God, the parable suggests, has lost its hold on the collective con- sciousness of the West: the morning newspaper has replaced the morning prayer. Our concern with what St. Thomas Aquinas called the Summum Bonum (salvation and eternal life, the highest objects of human striving) has been supplanted by the petty bourgeois virtues of industriousness, thrift, and enlightened self-interest—all with an eye toward achieving no higher goal than mere comfort- able self-preservation (what Nietzsche elsewhere refers to as “the green meadow happiness of the herd”). The great cathedrals of Europe are fast becoming “the tombs and monuments of God,” mere tourist attractions much like the Parthenon in Athens is today.

What are the implications of this momentous event? For Nietzsche they are catastrophic. The death of God signals a crisis of meaning the likes of which mankind has never before seen; the entire horizon that once gave the West its unique cultural identity and self-understanding has been wiped clean. To invoke Plato’s famous allegory, there are no longer any shadows on the cave wall because the fire has been extinguished. The sun (representing God), which once formed the moral and existential center of our universe, has been torn away from us. The madman carries a lantern in the morning light because only he recognizes that the world has been cast into the darkness: “I come too early . . . I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is traveling—it has not yet reached men’s ears.” His prophetic insight into the frightful consequences of the death of God is thus seen by his derisive and uncomprehending fellow unbelievers as a sign of madness.

Ivan Karamozov, one of the chief characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1880 masterpiece The Brothers Karamozov, famously proclaims: “If God does not exist, then nothing is true and everything is permitted.” What he means is that, without the Creator God of Judeo-Christianity, man has no essence or nature, and hence no intrinsic purpose. The universe is devoid of an eternal law in the Thomistic1 sense (since there is no God to conceive it), and without these there can be no cosmic basis for justice or morality. We are slowly becoming conscious of inhabiting a world deprived of any

1Referring to the ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas.

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moral absolutes, a world in which there are no longer any restraints on our conduct other than those established by human law or custom. We are literally free-falling in the Abyss; “Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness?” The death of God has ushered in the single greatest crisis in human history: Nihilism, the bleakest and most destructive of worldviews, which finds its most eloquent expression in the following lines spo- ken by Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

WHAT IS NOBLE? According to Nietzsche, the elevation of the human species necessitates the establishment and maintenance of an aristocratic society—“a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other.” Un- like most Westerners today, Nietzsche vehemently opposes the doctrine of egalitarianism. That all men are created equal, as the U.S. Declaration of Independence asserts, is not in Nietzsche’s eyes a “self-evident truth,” but rather a self-evident lie.

The aristocratic caste creates and embodies the system of values (“master morality”) that en- nobles, enriches, and beautifies their civilization. Whereas in liberal democratic societies each indi- vidual is free to pursue his or her particular vision of the good life, for Nietzsche civilization exists solely in order to produce those rare and gifted creatures that are its crowning glory. The multitude of men possesses value only insofar as they are useful subordinates to the ruling class; their principal virtues are obedience and submission.

How do aristocratic societies come into being? In a word, through conquest: “Men with a still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of the word, men of prey, still in possession of un- broken strength of will and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more peaceful races . . .” For Nietzsche, life is will-to-power, which “is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity . . . and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation.” All living things, from the unicellular organism to the human being and even whole societies, exhibit the will-to-power. (Suffice it to say that aristocratic individuals possess far more strength and vitality than the slavish multitudes.) Exploitation, which in Nietzsche’s time (no less than our own) is viewed disparagingly as belonging “to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive so- ciety,” is in fact identical with the “Will to Life.” This is an indisputable fact which many of us are only too eager to deny: “the truth is hard.”

MASTER AND SLAVE MORALITY Nietzsche recognizes two fundamentally distinct types of morality in the world, what he terms mas- ter morality and slave morality. The former has always originated in the noble or aristocratic caste, the latter among the slave or dependent class. The two value terms that are applied in master mo- rality are “good” and “bad.” The aristocratic man—who according to Nietzsche finds historical embodiment in “the Roman, Arabic, German, and Japanese nobility,” as well as among the Homeric heroes and Scandinavian Vikings—“conceives the root idea ‘good’ spontaneously and straight away, that is to say, out of himself.” “He honors whatever he recognizes in himself: such morality is

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self-glorification.” But what precisely are the qualities that characterize the aristocratic soul, qualities that find concrete expression in the formulation “good”? “The noble man,” Nietzsche explains, “honors in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself . . . who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard.” Thus self-mastery, above perhaps even the brute physical strength used to subjugate others, emerges as the defining characteristic of nobility. As Nietzsche asserts in the previous section (What Is Noble?), the aristocrats’ “superiority did not consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical power—they were more complete men . . .” The aristocratic caste, as the incarnate will-to-power, is fiercely proud of its superior strength and elevated stature. This “instinct for rank” impels the nobles to segregate themselves from the lower beings, those who possess “the opposite of this exalted, proud disposition,” the multitude of slaves and weaklings of all sorts, toward whom the nobles (who have duties only to their equals) may act in whatever manner they wish.

While master morality spontaneously conceives the idea “good” as the embodiment of the nobles’ defining qualities (self-mastery, pride, physical strength, ambition, etc.), the concept “bad” is more of an afterthought: it encompasses all that is devoid of “goodness” and thus rightly deserv- ing of scorn: “the cowardly, the timid, the insignificant, those thinking of narrow utility . . .” as well as “the distrustful . . . the self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused, the mendicant flatterers, and above all the liars.” So it is that the antithesis “good” and “bad” in master morality “means practically the same as ‘noble’ and ‘despicable.’ ”

Whereas master morality is properly speaking active, originating out of the spontaneous asser- tion of the aristocratic caste’s essential qualities as “good,” slave morality, by contrast, is more aptly characterized as passive or reactive: “slave morality says ‘no’ from the very outset to what is ‘outside itself,’ ‘different from itself,’ and ‘not itself,’: and this ‘no’ is its creative deed.” Slave morality is born out of the resentment experienced by “the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemanci- pated, the weary, and those uncertain of themselves,” who tremble in fear at the “power and dangerousness,” the “dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength” of the noble caste and thus who, “de- prived as they are of the proper outlet of action, are forced to find their compensation in an imagi- nary revenge.” Instead of asserting their will by way of direct action and manly self-assertion (of which only the “well-born” are capable), the impotent multitudes must resort to contriving a system of values whereby they exact “an imaginary revenge” on their betters by consigning them to the illusory category of evil—“the original, the beginning, the essential act in the conception of a slave morality”—in contrast to which the slave caste, by a wild leap of self-delusion, elevates itself to the status of “good”: The “ ‘tame man,’ the wretched mediocre and unedifying creature, has learnt to consider himself a goal and a pinnacle, an inner meaning, an historic principle, a ‘higher man.’ ” The transition from master to slave morality therefore looks like this:

MM SM Good Good Bad Evil

Slave morality, Nietzsche explains, is essentially the morality of utility. Those qualities “which serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers,” to make their lives less painful, less insecure, less con- temptible, and therefore more tolerable, are enshrined in the morality of the lower class:

It is here that sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, hu- mility, and friendliness attain to honor; for here these are the most useful qualities, and al- most the only means of supporting the burden of existence.

As Nietzsche restates in Goodness and the Will to Power, “good” in the aristocratic sense (which Ni- etzsche fully endorses as the valuation that best corresponds to “the nature of the living being as a primary organic function”) is constituted by “all that enhances the feeling of power.” “Bad,” by contrast, is that which “proceeds from weakness.” True happiness, then, is the “feeling that power is increasing—that resistance has been overcome.” The happiness of the noble caste is thus

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inseparable from activity, as opposed to the sham happiness “of the weak and oppressed, with their festering venom and malignity,” for whom happiness “appears essentially as a narcotic, a deaden- ing, a quietude, a peace, a ‘Sabbath,’ [i.e., a break from activity] . . . in short, a purely passive phe- nomenon.” The aristocrat’s inherent vigor and vitality reveal themselves in his “contempt for safety, body, life, and comfort, [his] awful joy and intense delight in all destruction, in all the ecstasies of victory and cruelty . . .” The diffident, slavish man, on the other hand—represented by modern egalitarians who “believe almost instinctively in ‘progress’ and the ‘future’ ”—desires nothing more than comfort and safety, which accounts for Nietzsche’s chilling observation that

The profound, icy mistrust which the German provokes, as soon as he arrives at power— even at the present time—is always still an aftermath of that inextinguishable horror with which for whole centuries Europe has regarded the wrath of the blonde Teuton beast . . . that lies at the core of all aristocratic races.

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What Is Noble? Friedrich Nietzsche

CHAPTER IX EVERY elevation of the type “man,” has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society and so it will always be—a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differ- ences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. Without the PATHOS OF DISTANCE, such as grows out of the incarnated difference of classes, out of the constant out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on subordinates and in- struments, and out of their equally constant practice of obeying and commanding, of keep- ing down and keeping at a distance—that other more mysterious pathos could never have arisen, the longing for an ever new widening of distance within the soul itself, the formation of ever higher, rarer, further, more extended, more comprehensive states, in short, just the elevation of the type “man,” the continued “self-surmounting of man,” to use a moral for- mula in a supermoral sense. To be sure, one must not resign oneself to any humanitarian illusions about the history of the origin of an aristocratic society (that is to say, of the pre- liminary condition for the elevation of the type “man”): the truth is hard. Let us acknowl- edge unprejudicedly how every higher civilization hitherto has ORIGINATED! Men with a still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of the word, men of prey, still in pos- session of unbroken strength of will and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more peaceful races (perhaps trading or cattle-rearing communities), or upon old mellow civilizations in which the final vital force was flickering out in brilliant fireworks of wit and depravity. At the commencement, the noble caste was always the barbarian caste: their superiority did not consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical power—they were more COMPLETE men (which at every point also implies the same as “more complete beasts”).

Corruption—as the indication that anarchy threatens to break out among the instincts, and that the foundation of the emotions, called “life,” is convulsed—is something radically different according to the organization in which it manifests itself. When, for instance, an aristocracy like that of France at the beginning of the Revolution, flung away its privileges with sublime disgust and sacrificed itself to an excess of its moral sentiments, it was cor- ruption:—it was really only the closing act of the corruption which had existed for centuries, by virtue of which that aristocracy had abdicated step by step its lordly prerogatives and lowered itself to a FUNCTION of royalty (in the end even to its decoration and parade- dress). The essential thing, however, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should not regard itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but as the SIGNIFI- CANCE and highest justification thereof—that it should therefore accept with a good con- science the sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who, FOR ITS SAKE, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society is NOT allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves

From Beyond Good and Evil (1886) by Friedrich Nietzsche, Translated by Helen Zimmern.

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to their higher duties, and in general to a higher EXISTENCE: like those sun-seeking climb- ing plants in Java—they are called Sipo Matador,—which encircle an oak so long and so often with their arms, until at last, high above it, but supported by it, they can unfold their tops in the open light, and exhibit their happiness.

To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one’s will on a par with that of others: this may result in a certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary conditions are given (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals in amount of force and degree of worth, and their co-relation within one organi- zation). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle more generally, and if pos- sible even as the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF SOCIETY, it would immediately disclose what it really is—namely, a Will to the DENIAL of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppres- sion, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation;—but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped? Even the organization within which, as was previ- ously supposed, the individuals treat each other as equal—it takes place in every healthy aristocracy—must itself, if it be a living and not a dying organization, do all that towards other bodies, which the individuals within it refrain from doing to each other it will have to be the incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavour to grow, to gain ground, attract to itself and acquire ascendancy—not owing to any morality or immorality, but because it LIVES, and because life IS precisely Will to Power. On no point, however, is the ordinary conscious- ness of Europeans more unwilling to be corrected than on this matter, people now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of society in which “the exploiting character” is to be absent—that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should refrain from all organic functions. “Exploitation” does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society it belongs to the nature of the living being as a primary organic function, it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life—Granting that as a theory this is a novelty—as a reality it is the FUNDAMENTAL FACT of all history let us be so far honest towards ourselves!

In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have hitherto pre- vailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits recurring regularly together, and connected with one another, until finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical distinction was brought to light. There is MASTER-MORALITY and SLAVE-MORALITY,—I would at once add, however, that in all higher and mixed civiliza- tions, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of the two moralities, but one finds still oftener the confusion and mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed sometimes their close juxtaposition—even in the same man, within one soul. The distinctions of moral values have either originated in a ruling caste, pleasantly conscious of being different from the ruled—or among the ruled class, the slaves and dependents of all sorts. In the first case, when it is the rulers who determine the conception “good,” it is the exalted, proud disposi- tion which is regarded as the distinguishing feature, and that which determines the order of rank. The noble type of man separates from himself the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud disposition displays itself he despises them. Let it at once be noted that in this first kind of morality the antithesis “good” and “bad” means practically the same as “noble” and “despicable”,—the antithesis “good” and “EVIL” is of a different origin. The cowardly, the timid, the insignificant, and those thinking merely of narrow utility are de- spised; moreover, also, the distrustful, with their constrained glances, the self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves be abused, the mendicant flatterers, and above all the liars:—it is a fundamental belief of all aristocrats that the common people are untruth- ful. “We truthful ones”—the nobility in ancient Greece called themselves. It is obvious that everywhere the designations of moral value were at first applied to MEN; and were only

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derivatively and at a later period applied to ACTIONS; it is a gross mistake, therefore, when historians of morals start with questions like, “Why have sympathetic actions been praised?” The noble type of man regards HIMSELF as a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: “What is injurious to me is injurious in itself;” he knows that it is he himself only who confers honour on things; he is a CREATOR OF VAL- UES. He honours whatever he recognizes in himself: such morality equals self-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of plenitude, of power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the consciousness of a wealth which would fain give and bestow:—the noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not—or scarcely—out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the super-abundance of power. The noble man hon- ours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard. “Wotan placed a hard heart in my breast,” says an old Scandinavian Saga: it is thus rightly expressed from the soul of a proud Viking. Such a type of man is even proud of not being made for sympathy; the hero of the Saga therefore adds warningly: “He who has not a hard heart when young, will never have one.” The noble and brave who think thus are the furthest removed from the morality which sees precisely in sympathy, or in acting for the good of others, or in DESINTERES- SEMENT, the characteristic of the moral; faith in oneself, pride in oneself, a radical enmity and irony towards “selflessness,” belong as definitely to noble morality, as do a careless scorn and precaution in presence of sympathy and the “warm heart.”—It is the powerful who KNOW how to honour, it is their art, their domain for invention. The profound rever- ence for age and for tradition—all law rests on this double reverence,—the belief and preju- dice in favour of ancestors and unfavourable to newcomers, is typical in the morality of the powerful; and if, reversely, men of “modern ideas” believe almost instinctively in “progress” and the “future,” and are more and more lacking in respect for old age, the ignoble origin of these “ideas” has complacently betrayed itself thereby. A morality of the ruling class, however, is more especially foreign and irritating to present-day taste in the sternness of its principle that one has duties only to one’s equals; that one may act towards beings of a lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems good to one, or “as the heart desires,” and in any case “beyond good and evil”: it is here that sympathy and similar sentiments can have a place. The ability and obligation to exercise prolonged gratitude and prolonged revenge—both only within the circle of equals,—artfulness in retaliation, RAFFINEMENT of the idea in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies (as outlets for the emotions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance—in fact, in order to be a good FRIEND): all these are typical characteristics of the noble morality, which, as has been pointed out, is not the mo- rality of “modern ideas,” and is therefore at present difficult to realize, and also to unearth and disclose.—It is otherwise with the second type of morality, SLAVE-MORALITY. Sup- posing that the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the weary, and those uncertain of themselves should moralize, what will be the common element in their moral estimates? Probably a pessimistic suspicion with regard to the entire situation of man will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man, together with his situation. The slave has an unfavourable eye for the virtues of the powerful; he has a skepticism and dis- trust, a REFINEMENT of distrust of everything “good” that is there honoured—he would fain persuade himself that the very happiness there is not genuine. On the other hand, THOSE qualities which serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers are brought into promi- nence and flooded with light; it is here that sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility, and friendliness attain to honour; for here these are the most useful qualities, and almost the only means of supporting the burden of existence. Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility. Here is the seat of the origin of the fa- mous antithesis “good” and “evil”:—power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil, a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of being despised.

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According to slave-morality, therefore, the “evil” man arouses fear; according to master- morality, it is precisely the “good” man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is regarded as the despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum when, in accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, a shade of depreciation—it may be slight and well-intentioned—at last attaches itself to the “good” man of this moral- ity; because, according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in any case be the SAFE man: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a little stupid, un bonhomme. Everywhere that slave-morality gains the ascendancy, language shows a tendency to ap- proximate the significations of the words “good” and “stupid.”—A last fundamental differ- ence: the desire for FREEDOM, the instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of liberty belong as necessarily to slave-morals and morality, as artifice and enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating.—Hence we can understand without further detail why love AS A PASSION—it is our European specialty—must absolutely be of noble origin; as is well known, its inven- tion is due to the Provencal poet-cavaliers, those brilliant, ingenious men of the “gai saber,” to whom Europe owes so much, and almost owes itself.

There is an INSTINCT FOR RANK, which more than anything else is already the sign of a HIGH rank; there is a DELIGHT in the NUANCES of reverence which leads one to infer noble origin and habits. The refinement, goodness, and loftiness of a soul are put to a peril- ous test when something passes by that is of the highest rank, but is not yet protected by the awe of authority from obtrusive touches and incivilities: something that goes its way like a living touchstone, undistinguished, undiscovered, and tentative, perhaps voluntarily veiled and disguised. He whose task and practice it is to investigate souls, will avail himself of many varieties of this very art to determine the ultimate value of a soul, the unalterable, innate order of rank to which it belongs: he will test it by its INSTINCT FOR REVERENCE. DIFFERENCE ENGENDRE HAINE: the vulgarity of many a nature spurts up suddenly like dirty water, when any holy vessel, any jewel from closed shrines, any book bearing the marks of great destiny, is brought before it; while on the other hand, there is an involuntary silence, a hesitation of the eye, a cessation of all gestures, by which it is indicated that a soul FEELS the nearness of what is worthiest of respect.

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The Genealogy of Morals Friedrich Nietzsche

10. The revolt of the slaves in morals begins in the very principle of resentment becoming cre- ative and giving birth to values—a resentment experienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet of action, are forced to find their compensation in an imagi- nary revenge. While every aristocratic morality springs from a triumphant affirmation of its own demands, the slave morality says “no” from the very outset to what is “outside itself,” “different from itself,” and “not itself”: and this “no” is its creative deed. This volte-face of the valuing standpoint—this inevitable gravitation to the objective instead of back to the subjective—is typical of resentment: the slave-morality requires as the condition of its ex- istence an external and objective world, to employ physiological terminology, it requires objective stimuli to be capable of action at all—its action is fundamentally a reaction. The contrary is the case when we come to the aristocrat’s system of values: it acts and grows spontaneously, it merely seeks its antithesis in order to pronounce a more grateful and ex- ultant “yes” to its own self;—its negative conception, “low,” “vulgar,“ “bad,” is merely a pale late-born foil in comparison with its positive and fundamental conception (saturated as it is with life and passion), of “we aristocrats, we good ones, we beautiful ones, we happy ones.”

When the aristocratic morality goes astray and commits sacrilege on reality, this is limited to that particular sphere with which it is not sufficiently acquainted—a sphere, in fact, from the real knowledge of which it disdainfully defends itself. It misjudges, in some cases, the sphere which it despises, the sphere of the common vulgar man and the low people: on the other hand, due weight should be given to the consideration that in any case the mood of contempt, of disdain, of superciliousness, even on the supposition that it falsely portrays the object of its contempt, will always be far removed from that degree of falsity which will always characterize the attacks—in effigy, of course—of the vindictive hatred and revengefulness of the weak in onslaughts on their enemies. In point of fact, there is in contempt too strong an admixture of nonchalance, of casualness, of boredom, of impa- tience, even of personal exultation, for it to be capable of distorting its victim into a real caricature or a real monstrosity. Attention again should be paid to the almost benevolent nuances which, for instance, the Greek nobility imports into all the words by which it distin- guishes the common people from itself; note how continuously a kind of pity, care, and consideration imparts its honeyed flavor, until at last almost all the words which are applied to the vulgar man survive finally as expressions for “unhappy,” “worthy of pity”—and how, conversely, “bad,” “low,” “unhappy” have never ceased to ring in the Greek ear with a tone in which “unhappy” is the predominant note: this is a heritage of the old noble aristocratic morality, which remains true to itself even in contempt. The “well-born” simply felt them- selves the “happy”; they did not have to manufacture their happiness artificially through looking at their enemies, or in cases to talk and lie themselves into happiness (as is the custom with all resentful men); and similarly, complete men as they were, exuberant with

From The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1887.

134 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

strength, and consequently necessarily energetic, they were too wise to dissociate happi- ness from action—activity becomes in their minds necessarily counted as happiness—all in sharp contrast to the “happiness” of the weak and the oppressed, with their festering venom and malignity, among whom happiness appears essentially as a narcotic, a deaden- ing, a quietude, a peace, a “Sabbath,” an enervation of the mind and relaxation of the limbs,—in short, a purely passive phenomenon. While the aristocratic man lived in confi- dence and openness with himself, the resentful man, on the other hand, is neither sincere nor naive, nor honest and candid with himself. His soul squints; his mind loves hidden cran- nies, tortuous paths and back-doors, everything secret appeals to him as his world, his safety, his balm; he is past master in silence, in not forgetting, in waiting, in provisional self-depreciation and self-abasement. A race of such resentful men will of necessity eventu- ally prove more prudent than any aristocratic race, it will honor prudence on quite a distinct scale, as, in fact, a paramount condition of existence, while prudence among aristocratic men is apt to be tinged with a delicate flavor of luxury and refinement; so among them it plays nothing like so integral a part as that complete certainty of function of the governing unconscious instincts, or as indeed a certain lack of prudence, such as a vehement and valiant charge, whether against danger or the enemy, or as those ecstatic bursts of rage, love, reverence, gratitude, by which at all times noble souls have recognized each other. When the resentment of the aristocratic man manifests itself, it fulfils and exhausts itself in an immediate reaction, and consequently instills no venom: on the other hand, it never manifests itself at all in countless instances, when in the case of the feeble and weak it would be inevitable. An inability to take seriously for any length of time their enemies, their disasters, their misdeeds—that is the sign of the full strong natures who possess a superflu- ity of molding plastic force, that heals completely and produces forgetfulness: a good ex- ample of this in the modern world is Mirabeau, who had no memory for any insults and meanness which were practiced on him, and who was only incapable of forgiving because he forgot. Such a man indeed shakes off with a shrug many a worm which would have bur- ied itself in another; it is only in characters like these that we see the possibility (supposing, of course, that there is such a possibility in the world) of the real “love of one’s enemies.” What respect for his enemies is found, forsooth, in an aristocratic man—and such a rever- ence is already a bridge to love! He insists on having his enemy to himself as his distinction. He tolerates no other enemy but a man in whose character there is nothing to despise and much to honor! On the other hand, imagine the “enemy” as the resentful man conceives him—and it is here exactly that we see his work, his creativeness; he has conceived “the evil enemy,” the “evil one,” and indeed that is the root idea from which he now evolves as a contrasting and corresponding figure a “good one,” himself—his very self!

11. The method of this man is quite contrary to that of the aristocratic man, who conceives the root idea “good” spontaneously and straight away, that is to say, out of himself, and from that material then creates for himself a concept of “bad”! This “bad” of aristocratic origin and that “evil” out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred—the former an imitation, an “extra,” an additional nuance; the latter, on the other hand, the original, the beginning, the essential act in the conception of a slave morality—these two words “bad” and “evil,” how great a difference do they mark, in spite of the fact that they have an identical contrary in the idea “good.” But the idea “good” is not the same: much rather let the question be asked, “Who is really evil according to the meaning of the morality of resentment?” In all sternness let it be answered thus:—just the good man of the other morality, just the aristocrat, the power- ful one, the one who rules, but who is distorted by the venomous eye of resentfulness, into a new color, a new signification, a new appearance. This particular point we would be the

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last to deny: the man who learned to know those “good” ones only as enemies, learned at the same time not to know them only as “evil enemies,” and the same men who inter pares1 were kept so rigorously in bounds through convention, respect, custom, and gratitude, though much more through mutual vigilance and jealousy, these men who in their relations with each other find so many new ways of manifesting consideration, self-control, delicacy, loyalty, pride, and friendship, these men are in reference to what is outside their circle (where the foreign element, a foreign country, begins), not much better than beasts of prey, which have been let loose. They enjoy their freedom from all social control, they feel that in the wilderness they can give vent with impunity to that tension which is produced by enclo- sure and imprisonment in the peace of society, they revert to the innocence of the beast-of- prey conscience, like jubilant monsters, who perhaps come from a ghostly bout of murder, arson, rape, and torture, with bravado and a moral equanimity, as though merely some wild student’s prank had been played, perfectly convinced that the poets have now an ample theme to sing and celebrate. It is impossible not to recognize at the core of all these aristo- cratic races the beast of prey; the magnificent blonde bride, avidly rampant for spoil and victory; this hidden core needed an outlet from time to time, the beast must get loose again, must return into the wilderness—the Roman, Arabic, German, and Japanese nobil- ity, the Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian Vikings, are all alike in this need. It is the aristo- cratic races who have left the idea “Barbarian” on all the tracks in which they have marched; nay, a consciousness of this very barbarianism, and even a pride in it, manifests itself even in their highest civilization (for example, when Pericles says to his Athenians in that cele- brated funeral oration, “Our audacity has forced a way over every land and sea, rearing everywhere imperishable memorials of itself for good and for evil”). This audacity of aristo- cratic races, mad, absurd, and spasmodic as may be its expression; the incalculable and fantastic nature of their enterprises, . . . their nonchalance and contempt for safety, body, life, and comfort, their awful joy and intense delight in all destruction, in all the ecstasies of victory and cruelty,—all these features become crystallized, for those who suffered thereby in the picture of the “barbarian,” of the “evil enemy,” perhaps of the “Goth” and of the “Vandal.” The profound, icy mistrust which the German provokes, as soon as he arrives at power,—even at the present time,—is always still an aftermath of that inextinguishable horror with which for whole centuries Europe has regarded the wrath of the blonde Teuton beast (although between the old Germans and ourselves there exists scarcely a psychologi- cal, let alone a physical, relationship). I have once called attention to the embarrassment of Hesiod, when he conceived the series of social ages, and endeavored to express them in gold, silver, and bronze. He could only dispose of the contradiction, with which he was con- fronted, by the Homeric world, an age magnificent indeed, but at the same time so awful and so violent, by making two ages out of one, which he henceforth placed one behind the other—first, the age of the heroes and demigods, as that world had remained in the memo- ries of the aristocratic families, who found therein their own ancestors; secondly, the bronze age, as that corresponding age appeared to the descendants of the oppressed, spoiled, ill- treated, exiled, enslaved; namely, as an age of bronze, as I have said, hard, cold, terrible, without feelings and without conscience, crushing everything, and bespattering everything with blood. Granted the truth of the theory now believed to be true, that the very essence of all civilization is to train out of man, the beast of prey, a tame and civilized animal, a do- mesticated animal, it follows indubitably that we must regard as the real tools of civilization all those instincts of reaction and resentment, by the help of which the aristocratic races, together with their ideals, were finally degraded and overpowered; though that has not yet come to be synonymous with saying that the bearers of those tools also represented the

1 A Latin term meaning “among equals.”

136 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

civilization. It is rather the contrary that is not only probable—nay, it is palpable to-day: these bearers of vindictive instincts that have to be bottled up, these descendants of all European and non-European slavery, especially of the pre-Aryan population—these peo- ple, I say, represent the decline of humanity! These “tools of civilization” are a disgrace to humanity, and constitute in reality more of an argument against civilization, more of a rea- son why civilization should be suspected. One may be perfectly justified in being always afraid of the blonde beast that lies at the core of all aristocratic races, and in being on one’s guard: but who would not a hundred times prefer to be afraid, when one at the same time admires, than to be immune from fear, at the cost of being perpetually obsessed with the loathsome spectacle of the distorted, the dwarfed, the stunted, the envenomed? And is that not our fate? What produces today our repulsion towards “man”?—for we suffer from “man,” there is no doubt about it. It is not fear; it is rather that we have nothing more to fear from men; it is that the worm “man” is in the foreground and pullulates; it is that the “tame man,” the wretched mediocre and unedifying creature, has learnt to consider himself a goal and a pinnacle, an inner meaning, an historic principle, a “higher man”; yes, it is that he has a certain right so to consider himself, in so far as he feels that in contrast to that excess of deformity, disease, exhaustion, and effeteness whose odor is beginning to pollute present- day Europe, he at any rate has achieved a relative success, he at any rate still says “yes” to life.

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Chapter 10

Jean-Paul Sartre

WHAT IS EXISTENTIALISM? In his 1945 lecture on existentialism and humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre asserts: “existentialism is noth- ing else but an attempt to draw all the conclusions from a coherent atheist position.” He begins his explication of existentialist philosophy by discussing one of its key concepts: that existence pre- cedes essence.

Let us, he says, consider any man-made object, a book or paper cutter, for instance. Here is an object that began as a concept in the mind of the artisan who designed and constructed it. The concept involves the manner by which the paper cutter is constructed and, more importantly, the specific purpose or use to which it is put (in this case, to cut paper). “Therefore,” Sartre concludes,

“let us say that, for the paper-cutter, essence—that is, the ensemble of both the

production routines and the properties which enable it to be both produced and

defined—precedes existence . . . Therefore, we have here a technical view of the world

whereby it can be said that production precedes existence.” In other words, in the “technical view of the world,” the “essence” of the artifact precedes the actual physical existence of the artifact, in the sense that the blueprint or concept of the paper-cutter al- ready exists in the artisan’s mind before he ever commits to its actual production in his workshop.

When we conceive God as the Creator, Sartre continues, He is thought of as a kind of superhu- man artisan: God creates the Earth and the human species according to a deliberate and specific plan or idea: “Thus, the concept of man in the mind of God is comparable to the concept of paper- cutter in the mind of the manufacturer, and, following certain techniques and a conception, God produces man, just as the artisan, following a definition and a technique, makes a paper-cutter.” The concept of mankind in the divine intelligence is what we refer to as “human nature”: it defines mankind in terms of what we are and how we are meant to live (as we see, for example, in the natu- ral law teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas).

138 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

Atheistic existentialism, on the contrary, states that, “if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept, and this being is man . . .” Man first of all exists, “turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself.” Because there is no God who conceives the concept “man” and then creates mankind according to that concept, there is no such thing as human nature. There is, in other words, no particular reason “why” we as a species are here. We are indeterminate beings, without any fixed essence or nature, and hence entirely free to live our lives in whatever manner we choose. The first principle of existentialism is that “man is nothing else but what he makes of him- self.” Sartre also refers to this principle as “subjectivity.” Let us explore it in greater detail.

Unlike inert or non-conscious objects such as stones and tables, man has a kind of intrinsic dignity insofar as he is a being who “is at the start a plan which is aware of itself . . .” “Nothing ex- ists prior to this plan; there is nothing in heaven; man will be what he will have planned to be.” The human being creates his own essence or nature through his freely chosen acts, there being no pre- determined human nature with which he is stamped at conception and to which his actions must conform. Thus if existence precedes essence, then “man is responsible for what he is.” And to be responsible for our own individuality necessarily entails being “responsible for all men,” for “in cre- ating the man that we want to be . . . [we] at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be.” In other words, when we make a fundamental choice in life, we do so according to purely subjective values that project an image of ourselves as we choose to be, and by extension we are projecting an ideal image of man as we think he ought to be. For example,

“if I want to marry, to have children; even if this marriage depends solely on my own

circumstances or passion or wish, I am involving all humanity in monogamy and not

merely myself. Therefore, I am responsible for myself and for everyone else. I am

creating a certain image of man of my own choosing. In choosing myself, I choose

man.” Anguish, Forlornness, Despair

By anguish Sartre means that “the man who involves himself and who realizes that he is not only the person he chooses to be, but also a law-maker who is, at the same time, choosing all mankind as well as himself, cannot escape the feeling of his total and deep responsibility.” Because man is free and at the same time responsible, he cannot escape the feeling of immense, deep, and total responsibility not only for his own actions but also for other men, since by choosing himself he as- sumes the responsibility of creating an image for all of humanity. His actions, therefore, are those of a lawmaker to whom “everything happens as if all mankind had its eyes fixed on him and were guid- ing itself by what he does.” Of course, many people attempt to flee from anxiety either by renounc- ing freedom (through relying on the advice of others instead of deciding on their own) or through self-deception (by believing that their actions have no effect on anyone else). If we are truly honest with ourselves, we recognize the disquieting and inescapable fact that we alone must choose what to do, without relying on any external source of guidance, however comforting such guidance may be. Thus, in making a decision, one “cannot help having a certain anguish.”

“When we speak of forlornness,” writes Sartre, “we mean only that God does not exist and that we have to face all the consequences of this.” Sartre exposes the naivety of the casual or fash- ionable atheist who believes that societies can continue to adhere to ethical norms while dispensing with the need for God altogether. The rationale of these superficial thinkers runs as follows:

Chapter 10: Jean-Paul Sartre 139

“God is a useless and costly hypothesis; we are discarding it, but meanwhile, in order for

there to be an ethics, a society, a civilization, it is essential that certain values be taken

seriously and that they be considered as having an a priori existence. It must be

obligatory, a priori, to be honest, not to lie, not to beat your wife, to have children, etc.,

. . . In other words . . . nothing will be changed if God does not exist. We shall find

ourselves with the same norms of honesty, progress, and humanism, and we shall have

made of God an outdated hypothesis which will peacefully die off by itself.” The thoughtless atheist wants to have the best of both worlds—that is, to jettison entirely the belief in God (with all the irksome restraints on our personal liberty such belief necessarily entails) while at the same time preserving the eternal and universally binding moral structure that makes civilization possible (but for which there is no place in a godless universe).

The existentialist, on the other hand, “thinks it very distressing that God does not exist,” for once God is out of the picture, “there can be no longer an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it.” If God does not exist, then “everything is permitted” be- cause, to invoke St. Thomas Aquinas, there would be no natural, divine, and eternal law to define, proscribe, and punish evil and injustice. Indeed, for Sartre “it is nowhere written that ‘the good’ exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men.” This key insight “is the very starting point of existentialism,” and as a result man is for- lorn, consumed by a feeling of abandonment, “because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to.” We are utterly alone in the universe, without any natural (or supernatural) basis by which we can guide and assess our lives (This should remind you of Nietzsche’s “Mad Man and the Death of God”). Hence Sartre’s famous dictum that “man is condemned to be free.” Con- demned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects free; “because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”

In order to give us a better understanding of forlornness, Sartre refers to one of his students, who sought his advice on whether or not to join the French resistance during World War II, rather than stay with his mother. Sartre points out that no world-view or ideology (outside of existential- ism) would be of any use to this boy because universal values are too vague and broad for the con- crete and specific dilemmas each of us faces in life. For this reason Sartre says: “the only thing left for us is to trust our instincts,” by which he means that, “in the end, feeling is what counts. I ought to choose whichever pushes me in one direction.” His young student, embracing his freedom and responsibility, ought therefore to reach a decision in the following way:

“If I feel that I love my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her—my desire for

vengeance, for action, for adventure—then I’ll stay with her. If, on the contrary, I feel

that my love for my mother isn’t enough, I’ll leave.” But how do we determine the value of a “feeling”? For Sartre, it is precisely through action that we determine the value of our “instincts.” By choosing to stay with his mother, the boy’s feeling for her acquires value; but short of an “act which confirms and defines it,” such “feeling” is worthless. De- spite what we may think of ourselves in the comfort and safety of our imagination, we cannot pos- sibly know how we would act in a given situation until we actually find ourselves in that situation, being forced by circumstances to make a choice one way or the other: “I may say that I like so-and-so well enough to sacrifice a certain amount of money for him, but I may say so only if I’ve done it.”

140 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

We arrive finally at Sartre’s analysis of despair, which results from our awareness that there are a multitude of factors in life that lie utterly beyond our control. Thus when “we want something, we always have to reckon with probabilities.” “The moment,” Sartre continues, “the possibilities I am considering are not rigorously involved by my action, I ought to disengage myself from them, be- cause no God, no scheme, can adapt the world and its possibilities to my will.” Thus no matter how well thought out your plan, no matter how determined your will, there will be contingencies you cannot influence. You may, for example, develop a detailed, long-term plan to become, say, an en- gineer. You may study hard and get into the best schools. But then one day, as you are driving home late one night after a graduate seminar, someone runs a red light and hits your car on the driver’s side, causing you severe and permanent brain damage, and thereby aborting your plans to become an engineer. Or perhaps you meet the person you think is your “soul mate,” and you invest much effort and hope in building a life-long relationship with him or her, only to find out that after ten years of marriage, your spouse has been cheating on you all along.

The lesson here is that it is impossible to conquer chance: hence Descartes’ famous dictum: “Conquer yourself rather than the world,” by which he means that you should accommodate your will to what is probable—knowing full well that circumstances outside of your control may hinder your plans—rather than expect the world (through belief in, for example, Divine Providence, or destiny) to adapt itself to your will, hopes, or desires. “Does this mean,” Sartre asks, “that I should abandon myself to quietism? No. First, I should involve myself; then, act on the old saying, ‘Noth- ing ventured, nothing gained.’ ” The existentialist says to himself: “I shall have no illusions and shall do what I can.” This is the very opposite of quietism, since it declares that

“Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he

is, therefore, nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.”

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The Humanism of Existentialism Jean-Paul Sartre

I should like on this occasion to defend existentialism against some charges which have been brought against it.

First, it has been charged with inviting people to remain in a kind of desperate quiet- ism because, since no solutions are possible, we should have to consider action in this world as quite impossible. We should then end up in a philosophy of contemplation; and since contemplation is a luxury, we come in the end to a bourgeois philosophy. The com- munists in particular have made these charges.

On the other hand, we have been charged with dwelling on human degradation, with pointing up everywhere the sordid, shady, and slimy, and neglecting the gracious and beau- tiful, the bright side of human nature; for example, according to Mlle. Mercier, a Catholic critic, with forgetting the smile of the child. Both sides charge us with having ignored hu- man solidarity, with considering man as an isolated being. The communists say that the main reason for this is that we take pure subjectivity, the Cartesian I think, as our starting point; in other words, the moment in which man becomes fully aware of what it means to him to be an isolated being; as a result, we are unable to return to a state of solidarity with the men who are not ourselves, a state which we can never reach in the cogito.

From the Christian standpoint, we are charged with denying the reality and serious- ness of human undertakings, since, if we reject God’s commandments and the eternal veri- ties, there no longer remains anything but pure caprice, with everyone permitted to do as he pleases and incapable, from his own point of view, of condemning the points of view and acts of others.

I shall today try to answer these different charges. Many people are going to be sur- prised at what is said here about humanism. We shall try to see in what sense it is to be understood. In any case, what can be said from the very beginning is that by existentialism we mean a doctrine which makes human life possible and, in addition, declares that every truth and every action implies a human setting and a human subjectivity.

As is generally known, the basic charge against us is that we put the emphasis on the dark side of human life. Someone recently told me of a lady who, when she let slip a vulgar word in a moment of irritation, excused herself by saying, “I guess I’m becoming an exis- tentialist.” Consequently, existentialism is regarded as something ugly; that is why we are said to be naturalists; and if we are, it is rather surprising that in this day and age we cause so much more alarm and scandal than does naturalism, properly so called. The kind of person who can take in his stride such a novel as Zola’s The Earth is disgusted as soon as he starts reading an existentialist novel; the kind of person who is resigned to the wisdom of the ages—which is pretty sad—finds us even sadder. Yet, what can be more disillusion- ing than saying “true charity begins at home” or “a scoundrel will always return evil for good?”

We know the commonplace remarks made when this subject comes up, remarks which always add up to the same thing: we shouldn’t struggle against the powers-that-be; we shouldn’t resist authority; we shouldn’t try to rise above our station; any action which

142 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

doesn’t conform to authority is romantic; any effort not based on past experience is doomed to failure; experience shows that man’s bent is always toward trouble, that there must be a strong hand to hold him in check, if not, there will be anarchy. There are still people who go on mumbling these melancholy old saws, the people who say, “It’s only human!” whenever a more or less repugnant act is pointed out to them, the people who glut themselves on chansons réalistes; these are the people who accuse existentialism of being too gloomy, and to such an extent that I wonder whether they are complaining about it, not for its pes- simism, but much rather its optimism. Can it be that what really scares them in the doctrine I shall try to present here is that it leaves to man a possibility of choice? To answer this question, we must re-examine it on a strictly philosophical plane. What is meant by the term existentialism?

Most people who use the word would be rather embarrassed if they had to explain it, since, now that the word is all the rage, even the work of a musician or painter is being called existentialist. A gossip columnist in Clartés signs himself The Existentialist, so that by this time the word has been so stretched and has taken on so broad a meaning, that it no longer means anything at all. It seems that for want of an advanced-guard doctrine analo- gous to surrealism, the kind of people who are eager for scandal and flurry turn to this philosophy which in other respects does not at all serve their purposes in this sphere.

Actually, it is the least scandalous, the most austere of doctrines. It is intended strictly for specialists and philosophers. Yet it can be defined easily. What complicates matters is that there are two kinds of existentialists; first, those who are Christian, among whom I would include Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, both Catholic; and on the other hand the atheis- tic existentialists among whom I class Heidegger, and then the French existentialists and myself. What they have in common is that they think that existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the starting point.

Just what does that mean? Let us consider some object that is manufactured, for ex- ample, a book or a paper-cutter: here is an object which has been made by an artisan whose inspiration came from a concept. He referred to the concept of what a paper-cutter is and likewise to a known method of production, which is part of the concept, something which is, by and large, a routine. Thus, the paper-cutter is at once an object produced in a certain way and, on the other hand, one having a specific use; and one can not postulate a man who produces a paper-cutter but does not know what it is used for. Therefore, let us say that, for the paper-cutter, essence—that is, the ensemble of both the production rou- tines and the properties which enable it to be both produced and defined—precedes exis- tence. Thus, the presence of the paper-cutter or book in front of me is determined. There- fore, we have here a technical view of the world whereby it can be said that production precedes existence.

When we conceive God as the Creator, He is generally thought of as a superior sort of artisan. Whatever doctrine we may be considering, whether one like that of Descartes or that of Leibniz, we always grant that will more or less follows understanding or, at the very least, accompanies it, and that when God creates He knows exactly what He is creating. Thus, the concept of man in the mind of God is comparable to the concept of paper-cutter in the mind of the manufacturer, and, following certain techniques and a conception, God produces man, just as the artisan, following a definition and a technique, makes a paper- cutter. Thus, the individual man is the realization of a certain concept in the divine intelligence.

In the eighteenth century, the atheism of the philosophers discarded the idea of God, but not so much for the notion that essence precedes existence. To a certain extent, this idea is found everywhere; we find it in Diderot, in Voltaire, and even in Kant. Man has a hu- man nature; this human nature, which is the concept of the human, is found in all men, which means that each man is a particular example of a universal concept, man. In Kant, the result of this universality is that the wild-man, the natural man, as well as the bourgeois,

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are circumscribed by the same definition and have the same basic qualities. Thus, here too the essence of man precedes the historical existence that we find in nature.

Atheistic existentialism, which I represent, is more coherent. It states that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who ex- ists before he can be defined by any concept, and that this being is man, or, as Heidegger says, human reality. What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after this thrust toward existence.

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existen- tialism. It is also what is called subjectivity, the name we are labeled with when charges are brought against us. But what do we mean by this, if not that man has a greater dignity than a stone or table? For we mean that man first exists, that is, that man first of all is the being who hurls himself toward a future and who is conscious of imagining himself as being in the future. Man is at the start a plan which is aware of itself, rather than a patch of moss, a piece of garbage, or a cauliflower; nothing exists prior to this plan; there is nothing in heaven; man will be what he will have planned to be. Not what he will want to be. Because by the word “will” we generally mean a conscious decision, which is subsequent to what we have already made of ourselves. I may want to belong to a political party, write a book, get married; but all that is only a manifestation of an earlier, more spontaneous choice that is called “will.” But if existence really does precede essence, man is responsible for what he is. Thus, existentialism’s first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him. And when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.

The word subjectivism has two meanings, and our opponents play on the two. Subjec- tivism means, on the one hand, that an individual chooses and makes himself; and, on the other, that it is impossible for man to transcend human subjectivity. The second of these is the essential meaning of existentialism. When we say that man chooses his own self, we mean that every one of us does likewise; but we also mean by that that in making this choice he also chooses all men. In fact, in creating the man that we want to be, there is not a single one of our acts which does not at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be. To choose to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and noth- ing can be good for us without being good for all.

If, on the other hand, existence precedes essence, and if we grant that we exist and fashion our image at one and the same time, the image is valid for everybody and for our whole age. Thus, our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind. If I am a workingman and choose to join a Christian trade-union rather than be a communist, and if by being a member I want to show that the best thing for man is resignation, that the kingdom of man is not of this world, I am not only involving my own case—I want to be resigned for everyone. As a result, my action has involved all humanity. To take a more individual matter, if I want to marry, to have children; even if this marriage depends solely on my own circumstances or passion or wish, I am involving all humanity in monogamy and not merely myself. Therefore, I am responsible for myself and for everyone else. I am creating a certain image of man of my own choosing. In choosing myself, I choose man.

This helps us understand what the actual content is of such rather grandiloquent words as anguish, forlornness, despair. As you will see, it’s all quite simple.

144 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

First, what is meant by anguish? The existentialists say at once that man is anguish. What that means is this: the man who involves himself and who realizes that he is not only the person he chooses to be, but also a lawmaker who is, at the same time, choosing all mankind as well as himself, can not help escape the feeling of his total and deep responsi- bility. Of course, there are many people who are not anxious; but we claim that they are hiding their anxiety, that they are fleeing from it. Certainly, many people believe that when they do something, they themselves are the only ones involved, and when someone says to them, “What if everyone acted that way?” they shrug their shoulders and answer, “Everyone doesn’t act that way.” But really, one should always ask himself, “What would happen if everybody looked at things that way?” There is no escaping this disturbing thought except by a kind of double-dealing. A man who lies and makes excuses for himself by saying “Not everybody does that,” is someone with an uneasy conscience, because the act of lying im- plies that a universal value is conferred upon the lie.

Anguish is evident even when it conceals itself. This is the anguish that Kierkegaard called the anguish of Abraham. You know the story: an angel has ordered Abraham to sac- rifice his son; if it really were an angel who has come and said, “You are Abraham, you shall sacrifice your son,” everything would be all right. But everyone might first wonder, “Is it re- ally an angel, and am I really Abraham? What proof do I have?”

There was a madwoman who had hallucinations; someone used to speak to her on the telephone and give her orders. Her doctor asked her, “Who is it who talks to you?” She an- swered, “He says it’s God.” What proof did she really have that it was God? If an angel comes to me, what proof is there that it’s an angel? And if I hear voices, what proof is there that they come from heaven and not from hell, or from the subconscious, or a pathological condition? What proves that they are addressed to me? What proof is there that I have been appointed to impose my choice and my conception of man on humanity? I’ll never find any proof or sign to convince me of that. If a voice addresses me, it is always for me to decide that this is the angel’s voice; if I consider that such an act is a good one, it is I who will choose to say that it is good rather than bad.

Now, I’m not being singled out as an Abraham, and yet at every moment I’m obliged to perform exemplary acts. For every man, everything happens as if all mankind had its eyes fixed on him and were guiding itself by what he does. And every man ought to say to himself, “Am I really the kind of man who has the right to act in such a way that humanity might guide itself by my actions?” And if he does not say that to himself, he is masking his anguish.

There is no question here of the kind of anguish which would lead to quietism, to inac- tion. It is a matter of a simple sort of anguish that anybody who has had responsibilities is familiar with. For example, when a military officer takes the responsibility for an attack and sends a certain number of men to death, he chooses to do so, and in the main he alone makes the choice. Doubtless, orders come from above, but they are too broad; he inter- prets them, and on this interpretation depend the lives of ten or fourteen or twenty men. In making a decision he can not help having a certain anguish. All leaders know this anguish. That doesn’t keep them from acting; on the contrary, it is the very condition of their action. For it implies that they envisage a number of possibilities, and when they choose one, they realize that it has value only because it is chosen. We shall see that this kind of anguish, which is the kind that existentialism describes, is explained, in addition, by a direct respon- sibility to the other men whom it involves. It is not a curtain separating us from action, but is part of action itself.

When we speak of forlornness, a term Heidegger was fond of, we mean that only God does not exist and that we have to face all the consequences of this. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain kind of secular ethics which would like to abolish God with the least possible expense. About 1880, some French teachers tried to set up a secular eth- ics which went something like this: God is a useless and costly hypothesis; we are

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discarding it; but, meanwhile, in order for there to be an ethics, a society, a civilization, it is essential that certain values be taken seriously and that they be considered as having an a priori existence. It must be obligatory, a priori, to be honest, not to lie, not to beat your wife, to have children, etc., etc. So we’re going to try a little device which will make it possible to show that values exist all the same, inscribed in a heaven of ideas, though otherwise God does not exist. In other words—and this, I believe, is the tendency of everything called re- formism in France—nothing will be changed if God does not exist. We shall find ourselves with the same norms of honesty, progress, and humanism, and we shall have made of God an outdated hypothesis which will peacefully die off by itself.

The existentialist, on the contrary, thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where there are only men. Dostoievsky said, “If God didn’t exist, everything would be possible.” That is, the very starting point of exis- tentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. He can’t start making excuses for himself.

If existence really does precede essence, there is no explaining things away by refer- ence to a fixed and given human nature. In other words, there is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom. On the other hand, if God does not exist, we find no values or com- mands to turn to which legitimize our conduct. So, in the bright realm of values, we have no excuse behind us, nor justification before us. We are alone, with no excuses.

That is the idea I shall try to convey when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never agree that a sweeping passion is a ravaging torrent which fatally leads a man to certain acts and is therefore an excuse. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion.

The existentialist does not think that man is going to help himself by finding in the world some omen by which to orient himself. Because he thinks that man will interpret the omen to suit himself. Therefore, he thinks that man, with no support and no aid, is con- demned every moment to invent man. Ponge, in a very fine article, has said, “Man is the future of man.” That’s exactly it. But if it is taken to mean that this future is recorded in heaven, that God sees it, then it is false, because it would really no longer be a future. If it is taken to mean that, whatever a man may be, there is a future to be forged, a virgin future before him, then this remark is sound. But then we are forlorn.

To give you an example which will enable you to understand forlornness better, I shall cite the case of one of my students who came to see me under the following circumstances: his father was on bad terms with his mother, and, moreover, was inclined to be a collabora- tionist; his older brother had been killed in the German offensive of 1940, and the young man, with somewhat immature but generous feelings, wanted to avenge him. His mother lived alone with him, very much upset by the half-treason of her husband and the death of her older son; the boy was her only consolation.

The boy was faced with the choice of leaving for England and joining the Free French Forces—that is, leaving his mother behind—or remaining with his mother and helping her to carry on. He was fully aware that the woman lived only for him and that his going-off— and perhaps his death—would plunge her into despair. He was also aware that every act that he did for his mother’s sake was a sure thing, in the sense that it was helping her to carry on, whereas every effort he made toward going off and fighting was an uncertain move which might run aground and prove completely useless; for example, on his way to England he might, while passing through Spain, be detained indefinitely in a Spanish camp;

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he might reach England or Algiers and be stuck in an office at a desk job. As a result, he was faced with two very different kinds of action: one, concrete, immediate, but concerning only one individual; the other concerned an incomparably vaster group, a national collec- tivity, but for that very reason was dubious, and might be interrupted en route. And, at the same time, he was wavering between two kinds of ethics. On the one hand, an ethics of sympathy, of personal devotion; on the other, a broader ethics, but one whose efficacy was more dubious. He had to choose between the two.

Who could help him choose? Christian doctrine? No. Christian doctrine says, “Be charitable, love your neighbor, take the more rugged path, etc., etc.” But which is the more rugged path? Whom should he love as a brother? The fighting man or his mother? Which does the greater good, the vague act of fighting in a group, or the concrete one of helping a particular human being to go on living? Who can decide a priori. Nobody. No book of eth- ics can tell him. The Kantian ethics says, “Never treat any person as a means, but as an end.” Very well, if I stay with mother, I’ll treat her as an end and not as a means; but by virtue of this very fact, I’m running the risk of treating the people around me who are fight- ing, as means; and, conversely, if I go to join those who are fighting, I’ll be treating them as an end, and, by doing that, I run the risk of treating my mother as a means.

If values are vague, and if they are always too broad for the concrete and specific case that we are considering, the only thing left for us is to trust our instincts. That’s what this young man tried to do; and when I saw him, he said, “In the end, feeling is what counts. I ought to choose whichever pushes me in one direction. If I feel that I love my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her—my desire for vengeance, for action, for adventure— then I’ll stay with her. If, on the contrary, I feel that my love for my mother isn’t enough, I’ll leave.”

But how is the value of a feeling determined? What gives his feeling for his mother value? Precisely the fact that he remained with her. I may say that I like so-and-so well enough to sacrifice a certain amount of money for him, but I may say so only if I’ve done it. I may say “I love my mother well enough to remain with her” if I have remained with her. The only way to determine the value of this affection is, precisely, to perform an act which confirms and defines it. But, since I require this affection to justify my act, I find myself caught in a vicious circle.

On the other hand, Gide has well said that a mock feeling and a true feeling are almost indistinguishable; to decide that I love my mother and will remain with her, or to remain with her by putting on an act, amount somewhat to the same thing. In other words, the feel- ing is formed by the acts one performs; so, I can not refer to it in order to act upon it. Which means that I can neither seek within myself the true condition which will impel me to act, nor apply to a system of ethics for concepts which will permit me to act. You will say, “At least, he did go to a teacher for advice.” But if you seek advice from a priest, for example, you have chosen this priest; you already knew, more or less, just about what advice he was going to give you. In other words, choosing your adviser is involving yourself. The proof of this is that if you are a Christian, you will say, “Consult a priest.” But some priests are col- laborating, some are just marking time, some are resisting. Which to choose? If the young man chooses a priest who is resisting or collaborating, he has already decided on the kind of advice he’s going to get. Therefore, in coming to see me he knew the answer I was going to give him, and I had only one answer to give: “You’re free, choose, that is, invent.” No general ethics can show you what is to be done; there are no omens in the world. The Catholics will reply, “But there are.” Granted—but, in any case, I myself choose the mean- ing they have.

When I was a prisoner, I knew a rather remarkable young man who was a Jesuit. He had entered the Jesuit order in the following way: he had had a number of very bad breaks; in childhood, his father died, leaving him in poverty, and he was a scholarship student at a religious institution where he was constantly made to feel that he was being kept out of

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charity; then, he failed to get any of the honors and distinctions that children like; later on, at about eighteen, he bungled a love affair; finally, at twenty-two, he failed in military train- ing, a childish enough matter, but it was the last straw.

This young fellow might well have felt that he had botched everything. It was a sign of something, but of what? He might have taken refuge in bitterness or despair. But he very wisely looked upon all this as a sign that he was not made for secular triumphs, and that only the triumphs of religion, holiness, and faith were open to him. He saw the hand of God in all this, and so he entered the order. Who can help seeing that he alone decided what the sign meant?

Some other interpretation might have been drawn from this series of setbacks; for ex- ample, that he might have done better to turn carpenter or revolutionist. Therefore, he is fully responsible for the interpretation. Forlornness implies that we ourselves choose our being. Forlorness and anguish go together.

As for despair, the term has a very simple meaning. It means that we shall confine ourselves to reckoning only with what depends upon our will, or on the ensemble of prob- abilities which make our action possible. When we want something, we always have to reckon with probabilities. I may be counting on the arrival of a friend. The friend is coming by rail or street-car; this supposes that the train will arrive on schedule, or that the street- car will not jump the track. I am left in the realm of possibility; but possibilities are to be reckoned with only to the point where my action comports with the ensemble of these pos- sibilities, and no further. The moment the possibilities I am considering are not rigorously involved by my action, I ought to disengage myself from them, because no God, no scheme, can adapt the world and its possibilities to my will. When Descartes said, “Conquer yourself rather than the world,” he meant essentially the same thing.

The Marxists to whom I have spoken reply, “You can rely on the support of others in your action, which obviously has certain limits because you’re not going to live forever. That means: rely on both what others are doing elsewhere to help you, in China, in Russia, and what they will do later on, after your death, to carry on the action and lead it to its ful- fillment, which will be the revolution. You even have to rely upon that, otherwise you’re im- moral.” I reply at once that I will always rely on fellow-fighters insofar as these comrades are involved with me in a common struggle, in the unity of a party or a group in which I can more or less make my weight felt; that is, one whose ranks I am in as a fighter and whose movements I am aware of at every moment. In such a situation, relying on the unity and will of the party is exactly like counting on the fact that the train will arrive on time or that the car won’t jump the track. But, given that man is free and that there is no human nature for me to depend on, I can not count on men whom I do not know by relying on human goodness or man’s concern for the good of society. I don’t know what will become of the Russian revolution; I may make an example of it to the extent that at the present time it is apparent that the proletariat plays a part in Russia that it plays in no other nation. But I can’t swear that this will inevitably lead to a triumph of the proletariat. I’ve got to limit myself to what I see.

Given that men are free and that tomorrow they will freely decide what man will be, I can not be sure that, after my death, fellow-fighters will carry on my work to bring it to its maximum perfection. Tomorrow, after my death, some men may decide to set up Fascism, and the others may be cowardly and muddled enough to let them do it. Fascism will then be the human reality, so much the worse for us.

Actually, things will be as man will have decided they are to be. Does that mean that I should abandon myself to quietism? No. First, I should involve myself; then, act on the old saw, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Nor does it mean that I shouldn’t belong to a party, but rather that I shall have no illusions and shall do what I can. For example, suppose I ask myself, “Will socialization, as such, ever come about?” I know nothing about it. All I know is that I’m going to do everything in my power to bring it about. Beyond that, I can’t

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count on anything. Quietism is the attitude of people who say, “Let others do what I can’t do.” The doctrine I am presenting is the very opposite of quietism, since it declares, “There is no reality except in action.” Moreover, it goes further, since it adds, “Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.”

According to this, we can understand why our doctrine horrifies certain people. Be- cause often the only way they can bear their wretchedness is to think, “Circumstances have been against me. What I’ve been and done doesn’t show my true worth. To be sure, I’ve had no great love, no great friendship, but that’s because I haven’t met a man or woman who was worthy. The books I’ve written haven’t been very good because I haven’t had the proper leisure. I haven’t had children to devote myself to because I didn’t find a man with whom I could have spent my life. So there remains within me, unused and quite viable, a host of propensities, inclinations, possibilities, that one wouldn’t guess from the mere series of things I’ve done.”

Now, for the existentialist there is really no love other than one which manifests itself in a person’s being in love. There is no genius other than one which is expressed in works of art; the genius of Proust is the sum of Proust’s works; the genius of Racine is his series of tragedies. Outside of that, there is nothing. Why say that Racine could have written another tragedy, when he didn’t write it? A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and out- side of that there is nothing. To be sure, this may seem a harsh thought to someone whose life hasn’t been a success. But, on the other hand, it prompts people to understand that reality alone is what counts, that dreams, expectations, and hopes warrant no more than to define a man as a disappointed dream, as miscarried hopes, as vain expectations. In other words, to define him negatively and not positively. However, when we say, “You are nothing else than your life,” that does not imply that the artist will be judged solely on the basis of his works of art; a thousand other things will contribute toward summing him up. What we mean is that a man is nothing else than a series of undertakings, that he is the sum, the organization, the ensemble of the relationships which make up these undertakings.

When all is said and done, what we are accused of, at bottom, is not our pessimism, but an optimistic toughness. If people throw up to us our works of fiction in which we write about people who are soft, weak, cowardly, and sometimes even downright bad, it’s not because these people are soft, weak, cowardly, or bad; because if we were to say, as Zola did, that they are that way because of heredity, the workings of environment, society, be- cause of biological or psychological determinism, people would be reassured. They would say, “Well, that’s what we’re like, no one can do anything about it.” But when the existential- ist writes about a coward, he says that this coward is responsible for his cowardice. He’s not like that because he has a cowardly heart or lung or brain; he’s not like that on account of his physiological make-up; but he’s like that because he has made himself a coward by his acts. There’s no such thing as a cowardly constitution; there are nervous constitutions; there is poor blood, as the common people say, or there are strong constitutions. But the man whose blood is poor is not a coward on that account, for what makes cowardice is the act of renouncing or yielding. A constitution is not an act; the coward is defined on the ba- sis of the acts he performs. People feel, in a vague sort of way, that this coward we’re talk- ing about is guilty of being a coward, and the thought frightens them. What people would like is that a coward or a hero be born that way.

One of the complaints most frequently made about The Ways of Freedom* can be summed up as follows:

“After all, these people are so spineless, how are you going to make heroes out of them?” This objection almost makes me laugh, for it assumes that people are born heroes. That’s what people really want to think. If you’re born cowardly, you may set your mind

* Les Chemins de la Liberté, Sartre’s trilogy of novels.—Tr.

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perfectly at rest; there’s nothing you can do about it; you’ll be cowardly all your life, what- ever you may do. If you’re born a hero, you may set your mind just as much at rest; you’ll be a hero all your life; you’ll drink like a hero and eat like a hero. What the existentialist says is that the coward makes himself cowardly, that the hero makes himself heroic. There’s al- ways a possibility for the coward not to be cowardly any more and for the hero to stop being heroic. What counts is total involvement; some one particular action or set of circum- stances is not total involvement.

Thus, I think we have answered a number of the charges concerning existentialism. You see that it can not be taken for a philosophy of quietism, since it defines man in terms of action; nor for a pessimistic description of man—there is no doctrine more optimistic, since man’s destiny is within himself; nor for an attempt to discourage man from acting, since it tells him that the only hope is in his acting and that action is the only thing that enables a man to live. Consequently, we are dealing here with an ethics of action and involvement.

Nevertheless, on the basis of a few notions like these, we are still charged with immur- ing man in his private subjectivity. There again we’re very much misunderstood. Subjectiv- ity of the individual is indeed our point of departure, and this for strictly philosophic rea- sons. Not because we are bourgeois, but because we want a doctrine based on truth and not a lot of fine theories, full of hope but with no real basis. There can be no other truth to start from than this: I think; therefore, I exist. There we have the absolute truth of conscious- ness becoming aware of itself. Every theory which takes man out of the moment in which he becomes aware of himself is, at its very beginning, a theory which confounds truth, for outside the Cartesian cogito, all views are only probable, and a doctrine of probability which is not bound to a truth dissolves into thin air. In order to describe the probable, you must have a firm hold on the true. Therefore, before there can be any truth whatsoever, there must be an absolute truth; and this one is simple and easily arrived at; it’s on everyone’s doorstep; it’s a matter of grasping it directly.

Secondly, this theory is the only one which gives man dignify, the only one which does not reduce him to an object. The effect of all materialism is to treat every man, including the one philosophizing, as an object, that is, as an ensemble of determined reactions in no way distinguished from the ensemble of qualities and phenomena which constitute a table or a chair or a stone. We definitely wish to establish the human realm as an ensemble of values distinct from the material realm. But the subjectivity that we have thus arrived at, and which we have claimed to be truth, is not a strictly individual subjectivity, for we have demonstrated that one discovers in the cogito not only himself, but others as well.

The philosophies of Descartes and Kant to the contrary, through the I think we reach our own self in the presence of others, and the others are just as real to us as our own self. Thus, the man who becomes aware of himself through the cogito also perceives all others, and he perceives them as the condition of his own existence. He realizes that he can not be anything (in the sense that we say that someone is witty or nasty or jealous) unless others recognize it as such. In order to get any truth about myself, I must have contact with an- other person. The other is indispensable to my own existence, as well as to my knowledge about myself. This being so, in discovering my inner being I discover the other person at the same time, like a freedom placed in front of me which thinks and wills only for or against me. Hence, let us at once announce the discovery of a world which we shall call intersub- jectivity; this is the world in which man decides what he is and what others are.

Besides, if it is impossible to find in every man some universal essence which would be human nature, yet there does exist a universal human condition. It’s not by chance that today’s thinkers speak more readily of man’s condition than of his nature. By condition they mean, more or less definitely, the a priori limits which outline man’s fundamental situation in the universe. Historical situations vary; a man may be born a slave in a pagan society or a feudal lord or a proletarian. What does not vary is the necessity for him to exist in the

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world, to be at work there, to be there in the midst of other people, and to be mortal there. The limits are neither subjective nor objective, or, rather, they have an objective and a sub- jective side. Objective because they are to be found everywhere and are recognizable ev- erywhere; subjective because they are lived and are nothing if man does not live them, that is, freely determine his existence with reference to them. And though the configurations may differ, at least none of them are completely strange to me, because they all appear as attempts either to pass beyond these limits or recede from them or deny them or adapt to them. Consequently, every configuration, however individual it may be, has a universal value.

Every configuration, even the Chinese, the Indian, or the Negro, can be understood by a Westerner. “Can be understood” means that by virtue of a situation that he can imagine, a European of 1945 can, in like manner, push himself to his limits and reconstitute within himself the configuration of the Chinese, the Indian, or the African. Every configuration has universality in the sense that every configuration can be understood by every man. This does not at all mean that this configuration defines man forever, but that it can be met with again. There is always a way to understand the idiot, the child, the savage, the foreigner, provided one has the necessary information.

In this sense we may say that there is a universality of man; but it is not given, it is perpetually being made. I build the universal in choosing myself; I build it in understanding the configuration of every other man, whatever age he might have lived in. This absolute- ness of choice does not do away with the relativeness of each epoch. At heart, what exis- tentialism shows is the connection between the absolute character of free involvement, by virtue of which every man realizes himself in realizing a type of mankind, an involvement always comprehensible in any age whatsoever and by any person whosoever, and the rela- tiveness of the cultural ensemble, which may result from such a choice; it must be stressed that the relativity of Cartestanism and the absolute character of Cartesian involvement go together. In this sense, you may, if you like, say that each of us performs an absolute act in breathing, eating, sleeping, or behaving in any way whatever. There is no difference be- tween being free, like a configuration, like an existence which chooses its essence, and being absolute. There is no difference between being an absolute temporarily localized, that is, localized in history, and being universally comprehensible.

This does not entirely settle the objection to subjectivism. In fact, the objection still takes several forms. First, there is the following: we are told, “So you’re able to do anything, no matter what!” This is expressed in various ways. First we are accused of anarchy; then they say, “You’re unable to pass judgment on others, because there’s no reason to prefer one configuration to another”; finally they tell us, “Everything is arbitrary in this choosing of yours. You take something from one pocket and pretend you’re putting it into the other.”

These three objections aren’t very serious. Take the first objection. “You’re able to do anything, no matter what” is not to the point. In one sense choice is possible, but what is not possible is not to choose. I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I am still choosing. Though this may seem purely formal, it is highly important for keeping fantasy and caprice within bounds. If it is true that in facing a situation, for exam- ple, one in which, as a person capable of having sexual relations, of having children, I am obliged to choose an attitude, and if I in any way assume responsibility for a choice which, in involving myself, also involves all mankind, this has nothing to do with caprice, even if no a priori value determines my choice.

If anybody thinks that he recognizes here Gide’s theory of the arbitrary act, he fails to see the enormous difference between this doctrine and Gide’s. Gide does not know what a situation is. He acts out of pure caprice. For us, on the contrary, man is in an organized situation in which he himself is involved. Through his choice, he involves all mankind, and he can not avoid making a choice: either he will remain chaste, or he will marry without having children, or he will marry and have children; anyhow, whatever he may do, it is

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impossible for him not to take full responsibility for the way he handles this problem. Doubt- less, he chooses without referring to pre-established values, but it is unfair to accuse him of caprice. Instead, let us say that moral choice is to be compared to the making of a work of art. And before going any further, let it be said at once that we are not dealing here with an aesthetic ethics, because our opponents are so dishonest that they even accuse us of that. The example I’ve chosen is a comparison only.

Having said that, may I ask whether anyone has ever accused an artist who has painted a picture of not having drawn his inspiration from rules set up a priori? Has any one ever asked, “What painting ought he to make?” It is clearly understood that there is no definite painting to be made, that the artist is engaged in the making of his painting, and that the painting to be made is precisely the painting he will have made. It is clearly understood that there are no a priori aesthetic values, but that there are values which appear subsequently in the coherence of the painting, in the correspondence between what the artist intended and the result. Nobody can tell what the painting of tomorrow will be like. Painting can be judged only after it has once been made. What connection does that have with ethics? We are in the same creative situation. We never say that a work of art is arbitrary. When we speak of a canvas of Picasso, we never say that it is arbitrary; we understand quite well that he was making himself what he is at the very time he was painting, that the ensemble of his work is embodied in his life.

The same holds on the ethical plane. What art and ethics have in common is that we have creation and invention in both cases. We can not decide a priori what there is to be done. I think that I pointed that out quite sufficiently when I mentioned the case of the stu- dent who came to see me, and who might have applied to all the ethical systems, Kantian or otherwise, without getting any sort of guidance. He was obliged to devise his law himself. Never let it be said by us that this man—who, taking affection, individual action, and kind- heartedness toward a specific person as his ethical first principle, chooses to remain with his mother, or who, preferring to make a sacrifice, chooses to go to England—has made an arbitrary choice. Man makes himself. He isn’t ready made at the start. In choosing his eth- ics, he makes himself, and force of circumstances is such that he can not abstain from choosing one. We define man only in relationship to involvement. It is therefore absurd to charge us with arbitrariness of choice.

In the second place, it is said that we are unable to pass judgment on others. In a way this is true, and in another way, false. It is true in this sense, that, whenever a man sanely and sincerely involves himself and chooses his configuration, it is impossible for him to prefer another configuration, regardless of what his own may be in other respects. It is true in this sense, that we do not believe in progress. Progress is betterment. Man is always the same. The situation confronting him varies. Choice always remains a choice in a situation. The problem has not changed since the time one could choose between those for and those against slavery, for example, at the time of the Civil War, and the present time, when one can side with the Maquis Resistance Party, or with the Communists.

But, nevertheless, one can still pass judgment, for, as I have said, one makes a choice in relationship to others. First, one can judge (and this is perhaps not a judgment of value, but a logical judgment) that certain choices are based on error and others on truth. If we have defined man’s situation as a free choice, with no excuses and no recourse, every man who takes refuge, behind the excuse of his passions, every man who sets up a determin- ism, is a dishonest man.

The objection may be raised, “But why mayn’t he choose himself dishonestly?” I reply that I am not obliged to pass moral judgment on him, but that I do define his dishonesty as an error. One can not help considering the truth of the matter. Dishonesty is obviously a falsehood because it belies the complete freedom of involvement. On the same grounds, I maintain that there is also dishonesty if I choose to state that certain values exist prior to me; it is self-contradictory for me to want them and at the same time state that they are

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imposed on me. Suppose someone says to me, “What if I want to be dishonest?” I’ll answer, “There’s no reason for you not to be, but I’m saying that that’s what you are, and that the strictly coherent attitude is that of honesty.”

Besides, I can bring moral judgment to bear. When I declare that freedom in every concrete circumstance can have no other aim than to want itself, if man has once become aware that in his forlornness he imposes values, he can no longer want but one thing, and that is freedom; as the basis of all values. That doesn’t mean that he wants it in the ab- stract. It means simply that the ultimate meaning of the acts of honest men is the quest for freedom as such. A man who belongs to a communist or revolutionary union wants concrete goals; these goals imply an abstract desire for freedom; but this freedom is wanted in something concrete. We want freedom for freedom’s sake and in every particular cir- cumstance. And in wanting freedom we discover that it depends entirely on the freedom of others, and that the freedom of others depends on ours. Of course, freedom as the defini- tion of man does not depend on others, but as soon as there is involvement, I am obliged to want others to have freedom at the same time that I want my own freedom. I can take free- dom as my goal only if I take that of others as a goal as well. Consequently, when, in all honesty, I’ve recognized that man is a being in whom existence precedes essence, that he is a free being who, in various circumstances, can want only his freedom, I have at the same time recognized that I can want only the freedom of others.

Therefore, in the name of this will for freedom, which freedom itself implies, I may pass judgment on those who seek to hide from themselves the complete arbitrariness and the complete freedom of their existence. Those who hide their complete freedom from themselves out of a spirit of seriousness or by means of deterministic excuses, I shall call cowards; those who try to show that their existence was necessary, when it is the very con- tingency of man’s appearance on earth, I shall call stinkers. But cowards or stinkers can be judged only from a strictly unbiased point of view.

Therefore though the content of ethics is variable, a certain form of it is universal. Kant says that freedom desires both itself and the freedom of others. Granted. But he believes that the formal and the universal are enough to constitute an ethics. We, on the other hand, think that principles which are too abstract run aground in trying to decide action. Once again, take the case of the student. In the name of what, in the name of what great moral maxim do you think he could have decided, in perfect peace of mind, to abandon his mother or to stay with her? There is no way of judging. The content is always concrete and thereby unforeseeable; there is always the element of invention. The one thing that counts is knowing whether the inventing that has been done, has been done in the name of freedom.

For example, let us look at the following two cases. You will see to what extent they correspond, yet differ. Take The Mill on the Floss. We find a certain young girl, Maggie Tul- liver, who is an embodiment of the value of passion and who is aware of it. She is in love with a young man, Stephen, who is engaged to an insignificant young girl. This Maggie Tul- liver, instead of heedlessly preferring her own happiness, chooses, in the name of human solidarity, to sacrifice herself and give up the man she loves. On the other hand, Sanseve- rina, in The Charterhouse of Parma, believing that passion is man’s true value, would say that a great love deserves sacrifices; that it is to be preferred to the banality of the conjugal love that would tie Stephen to the young ninny he had to marry. She would choose to sac- rifice the girl and fulfill her happiness; and, as Stendhal shows, she is even ready to sacrifice herself for the sake of passion, if this life demands it. Here we are in the presence of two strictly opposed moralities. I claim that they are much the same thing; in both cases what has been set up as the goal is freedom.

You can imagine two highly similar attitudes: one girl prefers to renounce her love out of resignation; another prefers to disregard the prior attachment of the man she loves out of

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sexual desire. On the surface these two actions resemble those we’ve just described. How- ever, they are completely different. Sanseverina’s attitude is much nearer that of Maggie Tulliver, one of heedless rapacity.

Thus, you see that the second charge is true and, at the same time, false. One may choose anything if it is on the grounds of free involvement.

The third objection is the following: “You take something from one pocket and put it into the other. That is, fundamentally, values aren’t serious, since you choose them.” My answer to this is that I’m quite vexed that that’s the way it is; but if I’ve discarded God the Father, there has to be someone to invent values. You’ve got to take things as they are. Moreover, to say that we invent values means nothing else but this: life has no meaning a priori. Before you come alive, life is nothing; it’s up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose. In that way, you see, there is a possibility of creating a human community.

I’ve been reproached for asking whether existentialism is humanistic. It’s been said, “But you said in Nausea that the humanists were all wrong. You made fun of a certain kind of humanist. Why come back to it now?” Actually, the word humanism has two very differ- ent meanings. By humanism one can mean a theory which takes man as an end and as a higher value. Humanism in this sense can be found in Cocteau’s tale Around the World in Eighty Hours when a character, because he is flying over some mountains in an airplane, declares, “Man is simply amazing.” That means that I, who did not build the airplanes, shall personally benefit from these particular inventions, and that I, as man, shall personally con- sider myself responsible for, and honored by, acts of a few particular men. This would imply that we ascribe a value to man on the basis of the highest deeds of certain men. This hu- manism is absurd, because only the dog or the horse would be able to make such an over- all judgment about man, which they are careful not to do, at least to my knowledge.

But it can not be granted that a man may make a judgment about man. Existentialism spares him from any such judgment. The existentialist will never consider man as an end because he is always in the making. Nor should we believe that there is a mankind to which we might set up a cult in the manner of Auguste Comte. The cult of mankind ends in the self-enclosed humanism of Comte, and, let it be said, of fascism. This kind of humanism we can do without.

But there is another meaning of humanism. Fundamentally it is this: man is constantly outside of himself; in projecting himself, in losing himself outside of himself, he makes for man’s existing; and, on the other hand, it is by pursuing transcendent goals that he is able to exist; man, being this state of passing-beyond, and seizing upon things only as they bear upon this passing-beyond, is at the heart, at the center of this passing-beyond. There is no universe other than a human universe, the universe of human subjectivity. This connection between transcendency, as a constituent element of man—not in the sense that God is transcendent, but in the sense of passing beyond—and subjectivity, in the sense that man is not closed in on himself but is always present in a human universe, is what we call exis- tentialist humanism. Humanism, because we remind man that there is no lawmaker other than himself, and that in his forlornness he will decide by himself; because we point out that man will fulfill himself as man, not in turning toward himself, but in seeking outside of him- self a goal which is just this liberation, just this particular fulfillment.

From these few reflections it is evident that nothing is more unjust than the objections that have been raised against us. Existentialism is nothing else than an attempt to draw all the consequences of a coherent atheistic position. It isn’t trying to plunge man into despair at all. But if one calls every attitude of unbelief despair, like the Christians, then the word is not being used in its original sense. Existentialism isn’t so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God doesn’t exist. Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would

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change nothing. There you’ve got our point of view. Not that we believe that God exists, but we think that the problem of His existence is not the issue. In this sense existentialism is optimistic, a doctrine of action, and it is plain dishonesty for Christians to make no distinc- tion between their own despair and ours and then to call us despairing.

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Chapter 11

The Frivolity of Evil Theodore Dalrymple

When prisoners are released from prison, they often say that they have paid their debt to society. This is absurd, of course: crime is not a matter of double-entry bookkeeping. You cannot pay a debt by having caused even greater expense, nor can you pay in advance for a bank robbery by offering to serve a prison sentence before you commit it. Perhaps, meta- phorically speaking, the slate is wiped clean once a prisoner is released from prison, but the debt is not paid off.

It would be just as absurd for me to say, on my imminent retirement after 14 years of my hospital and prison work, that I have paid my debt to society. I had the choice to do something more pleasing if I had wished, and I was paid, if not munificently, at least ade- quately. I chose the disagreeable neighborhood in which I practiced because, medically speaking, the poor are more interesting, at least to me, than the rich: their pathology is more florid, their need for attention greater. Their dilemmas, if cruder, seem to me more compelling, nearer to the fundamentals of human existence. No doubt I also felt my ser- vices would be more valuable there: in other words, that I had some kind of duty to per- form. Perhaps for that reason, like the prisoner on his release, I feel I have paid my debt to society. Certainly, the work has taken a toll on me, and it is time to do something else. Someone else can do battle with the metastasizing social pathology of Great Britain, while I lead a life aesthetically more pleasing to me.

My work has caused me to become perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with the problem of evil. Why do people commit evil? What conditions allow it to flourish? How is it best pre- vented and, when necessary, suppressed? Each time I listen to a patient recounting the cruelty to which he or she has been subjected, or has committed (and I have listened to several such patients every day for 14 years), these questions revolve endlessly in my mind.

No doubt my previous experiences fostered my preoccupation with this problem. My mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany, and though she spoke very little of her life be- fore she came to Britain, the mere fact that there was much of which she did not speak gave evil a ghostly presence in our household.

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Later, I spent several years touring the world, often in places where atrocity had re- cently been, or still was being, committed. In Central America, I witnessed civil war fought between guerrilla groups intent on imposing totalitarian tyranny on their societies, opposed by armies that didn’t scruple to resort to massacre. In Equatorial Guinea, the current dicta- tor was the nephew and henchman of the last dictator, who had killed or driven into exile a third of the population, executing every last person who wore glasses or possessed a page of printed matter for being a disaffected or potentially disaffected intellectual. In Liberia, I visited a church in which more than 600 people had taken refuge and been slaughtered, possibly by the president himself (soon to be videotaped being tortured to death). The out- lines of the bodies were still visible on the dried blood on the floor, and the long mound of the mass grave began only a few yards from the entrance. In North Korea I saw the acme of tyranny, millions of people in terrorized, abject obeisance to a personality cult whose object, the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, made the Sun King look like the personification of modesty.

Still, all these were political evils, which my own country had entirely escaped. I opti- mistically supposed that, in the absence of the worst political deformations, widespread evil was impossible. I soon discovered my error. Of course, nothing that I was to see in a British slum approached the scale or depth of what I had witnessed elsewhere. Beating a woman from motives of jealousy, locking her in a closet, breaking her arms deliberately, terrible though it may be, is not the same, by a long way, as mass murder. More than enough of the constitutional, traditional, institutional, and social restraints on large-scale political evil still existed in Britain to prevent anything like what I had witnessed elsewhere.

Yet the scale of a man’s evil is not entirely to be measured by its practical conse- quences. Men commit evil within the scope available to them. Some evil geniuses, of course, devote their lives to increasing that scope as widely as possible, but no such char- acter has yet arisen in Britain, and most evildoers merely make the most of their opportuni- ties. They do what they can get away with.

In any case, the extent of the evil that I found, though far more modest than the disas- ters of modern history, is nonetheless impressive. From the vantage point of one six- bedded hospital ward, I have met at least 5,000 perpetrators of the kind of violence I have just described and 5,000 victims of it: nearly 1 percent of the population of my city—or a higher percentage, if one considers the age-specificity of the behavior. And when you take the life histories of these people, as I have, you soon realize that their existence is as satu- rated with arbitrary violence as that of the inhabitants of many a dictatorship. Instead of one dictator, though, there are thousands, each the absolute ruler of his own little sphere, his power circumscribed by the proximity of another such as he.

Violent conflict, not confined to the home and hearth, spills out onto the streets. More- over, I discovered that British cities such as my own even had torture chambers: run not by the government, as in dictatorships, but by those representatives of slum enterprise, the drug dealers. Young men and women in debt to drug dealers are kidnapped, taken to the torture chambers, tied to beds, and beaten or whipped. Of compunction there is none— only a residual fear of the consequences of going too far.

Perhaps the most alarming feature of this low-level but endemic evil, the one that brings it close to the conception of original sin, is that it is unforced and spontaneous. No one requires people to commit it. In the worst dictatorships, some of the evil ordinary men and women do they do out of fear of not committing it. There, goodness requires heroism. In the Soviet Union in the 1930s, for example, a man who failed to report a political joke to the authorities was himself guilty of an offense that could lead to deportation or death. But in modern Britain, no such conditions exist: the government does not require citizens to behave as I have described and punish them if they do not. The evil is freely chosen.

Not that the government is blameless in the matter—far from it. Intellectuals pro- pounded the idea that man should be freed from the shackles of social convention and

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self-control, and the government, without any demand from below, enacted laws that pro- moted unrestrained behavior and created a welfare system that protected people from some of its economic consequences. When the barriers to evil are brought down, it flour- ishes; and never again will I be tempted to believe in the fundamental goodness of man, or that evil is something exceptional or alien to human nature.

Of course, my personal experience is just that—personal experience. Admittedly, I have looked out at the social world of my city and my country from a peculiar and possibly unrepresentative vantage point, from a prison and from a hospital ward where practically all the patients have tried to kill themselves, or at least made suicidal gestures. But it is not small or slight personal experience, and each of my thousands, even scores of thousands, of cases has given me a window into the world in which that person lives.

And when my mother asks me whether I am not in danger of letting my personal ex- perience embitter me or cause me to look at the world through bile-colored spectacles, I ask her why she thinks that she, in common with all old people in Britain today, feels the need to be indoors by sundown or face the consequences, and why this should be the case in a country that within living memory was law-abiding and safe? Did she not herself tell me that, as a young woman during the blackouts in the Blitz, she felt perfectly safe, at least from the depredations of her fellow citizens, walking home in the pitch dark, and that it never occurred to her that she might be the victim of a crime, whereas nowadays she has only to put her nose out of her door at dusk for her to think of nothing else? Is it not true that her purse has been stolen twice in the last two years, in broad daylight, and is it not true that statistics—however manipulated by governments to put the best possible gloss upon them—bear out the accuracy of the conclusions that I have drawn from my personal experience? In 1921, the year of my mother’s birth, there was one crime recorded for every 370 inhabitants of England and Wales; 80 years later, it was one for every ten inhabitants. There has been a 12-fold increase since 1941 and an even greater increase in crimes of vio- lence. So while personal experience is hardly a complete guide to social reality, the histori- cal data certainly back up my impressions.

A single case can be illuminating, especially when it is statistically banal—in other words, not at all exceptional. Yesterday, for example, a 21-year-old woman consulted me, claiming to be depressed. She had swallowed an overdose of her antidepressants and then called an ambulance.

There is something to be said here about the word “depression,” which has almost en- tirely eliminated the word and even the concept of unhappiness from modern life. Of the thousands of patients I have seen, only two or three have ever claimed to be unhappy: all the rest have said that they were depressed. This semantic shift is deeply significant, for it implies that dissatisfaction with life is itself pathological, a medical condition, which it is the responsibility of the doctor to alleviate by medical means. Everyone has a right to health; depression is unhealthy; therefore everyone has a right to be happy (the opposite of being depressed). This idea in turn implies that one’s state of mind, or one’s mood, is or should be independent of the way that one lives one’s life, a belief that must deprive human existence of all meaning, radically disconnecting reward from conduct.

A ridiculous pas de deux between doctor and patient ensues: the patient pretends to be ill, and the doctor pretends to cure him. In the process, the patient is willfully blinded to the conduct that inevitably causes his misery in the first place. I have therefore come to see that one of the most important tasks of the doctor today is the disavowal of his own power and responsibility. The patient’s notion that he is ill stands in the way of his understanding of the situation, without which moral change cannot take place. The doctor who pretends to treat is an obstacle to this change, blinding rather than enlightening.

My patient already had had three children by three different men, by no means un- usual among my patients, or indeed in the country as a whole. The father of her first child

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had been violent, and she had left him; the second died in an accident while driving a stolen car; the third, with whom she had been living, had demanded that she should leave his apartment because, a week after their child was born, he decided that he no longer wished to live with her. (The discovery of incompatibility a week after the birth of a child is now so common as to be statistically normal.) She had nowhere to go, no one to fall back on, and the hospital was a temporary sanctuary from her woes. She hoped that we would fix her up with some accommodation.

She could not return to her mother, because of conflict with her “stepfather,” or her mother’s latest boyfriend, who, in fact, was only nine years older than she and seven years younger than her mother. This compression of the generations is also now a common pat- tern and is seldom a recipe for happiness. (It goes without saying that her own father had disappeared at her birth, and she had never seen him since.) The latest boyfriend in this kind of ménage either wants the daughter around to abuse her sexually or else wants her out of the house as being a nuisance and an unnecessary expense. This boyfriend wanted her out of the house, and set about creating an atmosphere certain to make her leave as soon as possible.

The father of her first child had, of course, recognized her vulnerability. A girl of 16 living on her own is easy prey. He beat her from the first, being drunken, possessive, and jealous, as well as flagrantly unfaithful. She thought that a child would make him more responsible— sober him up and calm him down. It had the reverse effect. She left him.

The father of her second child was a career criminal, already imprisoned several times. A drug addict who took whatever drugs he could get, he died under the influence. She had known all about his past before she had his child.

The father of her third child was much older than she. It was he who suggested that they have a child—in fact he demanded it as a condition of staying with her. He had five children already by three different women, none of whom he supported in any way whatever.

The conditions for the perpetuation of evil were now complete. She was a young woman who would not want to remain alone, without a man, for very long; but with three children already, she would attract precisely the kind of man, like the father of her first child—of whom there are now many—looking for vulnerable, exploitable women. More than likely, at least one of them (for there would undoubtedly be a succession of them) would abuse her children sexually, physically, or both.

She was, of course, a victim of her mother’s behavior at a time when she had little control over her destiny. Her mother had thought that her own sexual liaison was more im- portant than the welfare of her child, a common way of thinking in today’s welfare Britain. That same day, for example, I was consulted by a young woman whose mother’s consort had raped her many times between the ages of eight and 15, with her mother’s full knowl- edge. Her mother had allowed this solely so that her relationship with her consort might continue. It could happen that my patient will one day do the same thing.

My patient was not just a victim of her mother, however: she had knowingly borne chil- dren of men of whom no good could be expected. She knew perfectly well the conse- quences and the meaning of what she was doing, as her reaction to something that I said to her—and say to hundreds of women patients in a similar situation—proved: next time you are thinking of going out with a man, bring him to me for my inspection, and I’ll tell you if you can go out with him.

This never fails to make the most wretched, the most “depressed” of women smile broadly or laugh heartily. They know exactly what I mean, and I need not spell it out further. They know that I mean that most of the men they have chosen have their evil written all over them, sometimes quite literally in the form of tattoos, saying “FUCK OFF” or “MAD DOG.” And they understand that if I can spot the evil instantly, because they know what I

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would look for, so can they—and therefore they are in large part responsible for their own downfall at the hands of evil men.

Moreover, they are aware that I believe that it is both foolish and wicked to have chil- dren by men without having considered even for a second or a fraction of a second whether the men have any qualities that might make them good fathers. Mistakes are possible, of course: a man may turn out not to be as expected. But not even to consider the question is to act as irresponsibly as it is possible for a human being to act. It is knowingly to increase the sum of evil in the world, and sooner or later the summation of small evils leads to the triumph of evil itself.

My patient did not start out with the intention of abetting, much less of committing, evil. And yet her refusal to take seriously and act upon the signs that she saw and the knowledge that she had was not the consequence of blindness and ignorance. It was utterly willful. She knew from her own experience, and that of many people around her, that her choices, based on the pleasure or the desire of the moment, would lead to the misery and suffering not only of herself, but—especially—of her own children.

This truly is not so much the banality as the frivolity of evil: the elevation of passing pleasure for oneself over the long-term misery of others to whom one owes a duty. What better phrase than the frivolity of evil describes the conduct of a mother who turns her own 14-year-old child out of doors because her latest boyfriend does not want him or her in the house? And what better phrase describes the attitude of those intellectuals who see in this conduct nothing but an extension of human freedom and choice, another thread in life’s rich tapestry?

The men in these situations also know perfectly well the meaning and consequences of what they are doing. The same day that I saw the patient I have just described, a man aged 25 came into our ward, in need of an operation to remove foil-wrapped packets of cocaine that he had swallowed in order to evade being caught by the police in possession of them. (Had a packet burst, he would have died immediately.) As it happened, he had just left his latest girlfriend—one week after she had given birth to their child. They weren’t get- ting along, he said; he needed his space. Of the child, he thought not for an instant.

I asked him whether he had any other children. “Four,” he replied. “How many mothers?” “Three.” “Do you see any of your children?” He shook his head. It is supposedly the duty of the doctor not to pass judgment on

how his patients have elected to live, but I think I may have raised my eyebrows slightly. At any rate, the patient caught a whiff of my disapproval.

“I know,” he said. “I know. Don’t tell me.” These words were a complete confession of guilt. I have had hundreds of conversa-

tions with men who have abandoned their children in this fashion, and they all know per- fectly well what the consequences are for the mother and, more important, for the children. They all know that they are condemning their children to lives of brutality, poverty, abuse, and hopelessness. They tell me so themselves. And yet they do it over and over again, to such an extent that I should guess that nearly a quarter of British children are now brought up this way.

The result is a rising tide of neglect, cruelty, sadism, and joyous malignity that stag- gers and appalls me. I am more horrified after 14 years than the day I started.

Where does this evil come from? There is obviously something flawed in the heart of man that he should wish to behave in this depraved fashion—the legacy of original sin, to speak metaphorically. But if, not so long ago, such conduct was much less widespread than it is now (in a time of much lesser prosperity, be it remembered by those who think that poverty explains everything), then something more is needed to explain it.

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A necessary, though not sufficient, condition is the welfare state, which makes it pos- sible, and sometimes advantageous, to behave like this. Just as the IMF is the bank of last resort, encouraging commercial banks to make unwise loans to countries that they know the IMF will bail out, so the state is the parent of last resort—or, more often than not, of first resort. The state, guided by the apparently generous and humane philosophy that no child, whatever its origins, should suffer deprivation, gives assistance to any child, or rather the mother of any child, once it has come into being. In matters of public housing, it is actually advantageous for a mother to put herself at a disadvantage, to be a single mother, without support from the fathers of the children and dependent on the state for income. She is then a priority; she won’t pay local taxes, rent, or utility bills.

As for the men, the state absolves them of all responsibility for their children. The state is now father to the child. The biological father is therefore free to use whatever income he has as pocket money, for entertainment and little treats. He is thereby reduced to the status of a child, though a spoiled child with the physical capabilities of a man: petulant, demand- ing, querulous, self-centered, and violent if he doesn’t get his own way. The violence esca- lates and becomes a habit. A spoiled brat becomes an evil tyrant.

But if the welfare state is a necessary condition for the spread of evil, it is not sufficient. After all, the British welfare state is neither the most extensive nor the most generous in the world, and yet our rates of social pathology—public drunkenness, drug-taking, teenage pregnancy, venereal disease, hooliganism, criminality—are the highest in the world. Some- thing more was necessary to produce this result.

Here we enter the realm of culture and ideas. For it is necessary not only to believe that it is economically feasible to behave in the irresponsible and egotistical fashion that I have described, but also to believe that it is morally permissible to do so. And this idea has been peddled by the intellectual elite in Britain for many years, more assiduously than anywhere else, to the extent that it is now taken for granted. There has been a long march not only through the institutions but through the minds of the young. When young people want to praise themselves, they describe themselves as “nonjudgmental.” For them, the highest form of morality is amorality.

There has been an unholy alliance between those on the Left, who believe that man is endowed with rights but no duties, and libertarians on the Right, who believe that consumer choice is the answer to all social questions, an idea eagerly adopted by the Left in precisely those areas where it does not apply. Thus people have a right to bring forth children any way they like, and the children, of course, have the right not to be deprived of anything, at least anything material. How men and women associate and have children is merely a mat- ter of consumer choice, of no more moral consequence than the choice between dark and milk chocolate, and the state must not discriminate among different forms of association and child rearing, even if such non-discrimination has the same effect as British and French neutrality during the Spanish Civil War.

The consequences to the children and to society do not enter into the matter: for in any case it is the function of the state to ameliorate by redistributive taxation the material effects of individual irresponsibility, and to ameliorate the emotional, educational, and spiri- tual effects by an army of social workers, psychologists, educators, counselors, and the like, who have themselves come to form a powerful vested interest of dependence on the government.

So while my patients know in their hearts that what they are doing is wrong, and worse than wrong, they are encouraged nevertheless to do it by the strong belief that they have the right to do it, because everything is merely a matter of choice. Almost no one in Britain ever publicly challenges this belief. Nor has any politician the courage to demand a with- drawal of the public subsidy that allows the intensifying evil I have seen over the past 14 years—violence, rape, intimidation, cruelty, drug addiction, neglect—to flourish so exu- berantly. With 40 percent of children in Britain born out of wedlock, and the proportion still

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rising, and with divorce the norm rather than the exception, there soon will be no electoral constituency for reversal. It is already deemed to be electoral suicide to advocate it by those who, in their hearts, know that such a reversal is necessary.

I am not sure they are right. They lack courage. My only cause for optimism during the past 14 years has been the fact that my patients, with a few exceptions, can be brought to see the truth of what I say: that they are not depressed; they are unhappy—and they are unhappy because they have chosen to live in a way that they ought not to live, and in which it is impossible to be happy. Without exception, they say that they would not want their children to live as they have lived. But the social, economic, and ideological pressures— and, above all, the parental example—make it likely that their children’s choices will be as bad as theirs.

Ultimately, the moral cowardice of the intellectual and political elites is responsible for the continuing social disaster that has overtaken Britain, a disaster whose full social and economic consequences have yet to be seen. A sharp economic downturn would expose how far the policies of successive governments, all in the direction of libertinism, have at- omized British society, so that all social solidarity within families and communities, so pro- tective in times of hardship, has been destroyed. The elites cannot even acknowledge what has happened, however obvious it is, for to do so would be to admit their past responsibility for it, and that would make them feel bad. Better that millions should live in wretchedness and squalor than that they should feel bad about themselves—another aspect of the frivol- ity of evil. Moreover, if members of the elite acknowledged the social disaster brought about by their ideological libertinism, they might feel called upon to place restraints upon their own behavior, for you cannot long demand of others what you balk at doing yourself.

There are pleasures, no doubt, to be had in crying in the wilderness, in being a man who thinks he has seen further and more keenly than others, but they grow fewer with time. The wilderness has lost its charms for me.

I’m leaving—I hope for good.

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How—and How Not—to Love Mankind Theodore Dalrymple

Almost every intellectual claims to have the welfare of humanity, and particularly the wel- fare of the poor, at heart: but since no mass murder takes place without its perpetrators alleging that they are acting for the good of mankind, philanthropic sentiment can plainly take a multiplicity of forms.

Two great European writers of the nineteenth century, Ivan Turgenev and Karl Marx, illustrate this diversity with vivid clarity. Both were born in 1818 and died in 1883, and their lives paralleled each other almost preternaturally in many other respects as well. They nev- ertheless came to view human life and suffering in very different, indeed irreconcilable, ways—through different ends of the telescope, as it were. Turgenev saw human beings as individuals always endowed with consciousness, character, feelings, and moral strengths and weaknesses; Marx saw them always as snowflakes in an avalanche, as instances of general forces, as not yet fully human because utterly conditioned by their circumstances. Where Turgenev saw men, Marx saw classes of men; where Turgenev saw people, Marx saw the People. These two ways of looking at the world persist into our own time and profoundly affect, for better or for worse, the solutions we propose to our social problems.

The resemblances between the careers of these men begin with their attendance at Berlin University at overlapping times, where both were deeply affected—even intoxicated— by the prevailing Hegelianism. As a result, both considered careers as university teachers of philosophy, but neither ever held a university post. They had many acquaintances in common in Berlin, including Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian aristocrat who later became a revolutionary anarchist, the philosopher Bruno Bauer, and the radical poet Georg Herwegh. They shared a carelessness with money, perhaps because they were both born into easy circumstances and therefore assumed that money would never be a problem. Both started their writing careers as romantic poets, though more of Turgenev’s poetry than Marx’s was published.

Their literary influences and tastes were similar. Each read widely in the Greek and Latin classics; each could quote Shakespeare in the original. Both learned Spanish in order to read Calderón. (Turgenev, of course, also learned it to speak the native language of the great, but unsatisfactory, love of his life, the famous prima donna Pauline Viardot.) The two men were in Brussels at the outbreak of the 1848 revolution against the July monarchy in France, and both left to observe the events elsewhere. Turgenev’s closest Russian friend, Pavel Annenkov, to whom he dedicated some of his work, knew Marx well in Brussels—and left an unflattering description of him.

The secret police spied upon both men, and both lived most of their adult lives, and died, in exile. Each fathered a child by a servant: a youthful indiscretion in Turgenev’s case, a middle-aged one in Marx’s. Unlike Marx, however, Turgenev acknowledged his child and paid for her upbringing.

Both men were known for their sympathy with the downtrodden and oppressed. But for all their similarities of education and experience, the quality of each man’s compassion could not have been more different: for while one’s, rooted in the suffering of individuals, was real, the other’s, abstract and general, was not.

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To see the difference, contrast Turgenev’s 1852 story “Mumu” with Marx’s Communist Manifesto, written four years earlier. Both works, almost exactly equal in length, took shape in difficult circumstances: Marx, expelled from France for revolutionary activity, was resid- ing in Brussels, where he had no wish to be and no income, while Turgenev was under house arrest at Spasskoye, his isolated estate southwest of Moscow, for having written his Sketches from a Hunter’s Album, an implicitly anti-serfdom—and therefore subversive— book. The censor who allowed it to be published was dismissed and stripped of his pension.

“Mumu” is set in Moscow in the days of serfdom. Gerasim is a deaf and dumb serf of enormous stature and strength, whose owner, an old and tyrannical feudal landowner, has had him brought to the city from the countryside. Unable to express himself in words, Gera- sim clumsily woos a peasant girl called Tatyana, also owned by the landowner. On a whim, however, the landowner, a sour and embittered widow who is never named, decides to marry Tatyana off to another of her serfs, a drunken cobbler called Kapiton, thus dashing Gerasim’s hopes.

Not long after, Gerasim finds a young puppy drowning in a muddy creek. He rescues her and looks after her until she is a healthy, full-grown dog. He calls her Mumu, the nearest he can come to articulating a word, and everyone in the landowner’s Moscow establishment soon knows the dog by that name. Gerasim grows passionately fond of the dog, his only true friend, whom he allows to live with him in his little room, and who follows him every- where. The dog adores Gerasim.

One day the landowner sees Mumu through the window and asks for the dog to be brought to her. But Mumu is afraid of the landowner and bares her teeth to her. The land- owner instantly conceives a dislike of the dog and demands that she be gotten rid of. One of the landowner’s servants takes the dog away and sells it to a stranger. Gerasim searches for Mumu frantically but fails to find her. However, Mumu finds her way back to him, to his overwhelming joy.

Unfortunately, Mumu barks on the following night and wakes the landowner, who be- lieves herself to be sorely tried by this interruption of her sleep. She demands that the dog, this time, be destroyed. Her servants go to Gerasim and, by means of signs, pass on her demand. Gerasim, recognizing the inevitable, promises to destroy the dog himself.

There follow two passages of almost unbearable pathos. In the first, Gerasim takes Mumu to the local tavern: “In the tavern they knew Gerasim and understood his sign lan- guage. He ordered cabbage soup and meat and sat down with his arms on the table.

Mumu stood beside his chair, looking at him calmly with her intelligent eyes. Her coat literally shone: clearly she had only recently been combed. They brought Gerasim his cab- bage soup. He broke some bread into it, cut up the meat into small pieces and set the bowl down on the floor. Mumu started eating with her customary delicacy, her muzzle hardly touching the food. Gerasim studied her for a long time; two heavy tears rolled suddenly out of his eyes: one fell on the dog’s forehead, the other into the soup. He covered his face with his hand. Mumu ate half the bowl and walked away licking herself. Gerasim stood up, paid for the soup and left.”

He takes Mumu down to the river, picking up a couple of bricks en route. At the river- bank, he gets into a boat with Mumu and rows out some distance.

“Finally Gerasim sat up straight, hurriedly, with a look of sickly bitterness on his face, tied the bricks together with string, made a noose, placed it round Mumu’s neck, lifted her over the river, looked at her for the last time. . . . Trustingly and without fear she looked at him and slightly wagged her tail. He turned away, grimaced and let go. . . . Gerasim heard nothing, neither the whining of the falling Mumu, nor the heavy splash in the water; for him the noisiest day was still and soundless, as not even the quietest night can be soundless for us; and when he again opened his eyes the little waves were as ever hurrying along the

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river’s surface, as if racing after each other, as ever they rippled against the sides of the boat, and only far behind one or two broad rings rippled towards the bank.”

We learn that after Mumu’s death Gerasim runs away back to his village, where he works like a slave in the fields: but never again does he form a close attachment to man or dog.

When the cultivated, aristocratic, revolutionary Russian exile Alexander Herzen read the story, he trembled with rage. Thomas Carlyle said it was the most emotionally affecting story he had ever read. John Galsworthy said of it that “no more stirring protest against tyrannical cruelty was ever penned.” And one of Turgenev’s relatives, to whom the author read “Mumu,” wrote afterward, “What a humane and good man one must be to understand and give expression to the experience and torments of another’s heart in that way!”

The story is autobiographical, and the tyrannical, captious, arbitrary, and selfish land- owner is the author’s mother, Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva. Widowed early, she was an ab- solute monarch on her estate. Many stories have come down to us of her cruelty, though not all have been authenticated: for example, that she had two serfs sent to Siberia for hav- ing failed to make their obeisances to her as she passed—because they did not see her. And the model for Gerasim was a deaf and dumb serf belonging to Varvara Petrovna called Andrei.

Clearly “Mumu” is an impassioned protest against the exercise of arbitrary power of one person over another, but it is not politically schematic. Though it is obviously directed against serfdom, the story does not suggest that cruelty is the prerogative of feudal land- owners alone, and that if only serfdom were abolished, no vigilance against such cruelty would be necessary. If power is a permanent feature of human relationships—and surely only adolescents and certain kinds of intellectuals, Marx included, could imagine that it is not—then “Mumu” is a permanent call to compassion, restraint, and justice in its exercise. That is why “Mumu” does not lose its power to move 140 years after the abolition of serf- dom in Russia; while it refers to a particular place at a particular time, it is also universal.

In making his general point, Turgenev does not suggest that his characters are any- thing but individuals, with their own personal characteristics. He does not see them just as members of a group or class, caused by oppression to act in predetermined ways like trams along their rails: and his careful observation of even the humblest of them is the most powerful testimony possible to his belief in their humanity. Grand aristocrat that he was, and acquainted with the greatest minds of Europe, he did not disdain to take seriously the humblest peasant, who could not hear or speak. Turgenev’s oppressed peasants were fully human beings, endowed with free will and capable of moral choice.

He contrasts Gerasim’s tenderness toward Mumu with the landowner’s selfish frac- tiousness. “Why should that dumb man have a dog?” she asks, without the thought enter- ing her head for a moment that “that dumb man” might have interests and feelings of his own. “Who allowed him to keep a dog out in my yard?”

Turgenev does not suggest that the landowning widow’s quasi-absolute power is in any way enviable. Although religious in a superficial and sententious way, she regards God as a servant, not a master, and she acknowledges no limits, either God’s or the law’s, to the ex- ercise of her will. The result for her is misery, a permanent state of irritation, dissatisfaction, and hypochondria. The satisfaction of her whims brings no pleasure, precisely because they are whims rather than true desires; and—used as she is to obedience, and deserving of it as she believes herself to be—she experiences all resistance, even that of time, as intolerable.

For example, when Mumu is brought in, the landowner talks to her in a syrupy, ingra- tiating manner; but when the dog fails to respond, she changes her tune. “Take her away! A disgusting little dog!” Unlike Gerasim, who has nurtured Mumu with tender devotion, the landowner wants the dog to love her immediately, just because she is who she is.

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Her power renders her dishonest and incapable of introspection. When Gerasim disap- pears after drowning Mumu, “she flew into a temper, shed tears, ordered him to be found no matter what happened, avowed that she’d never ordered the dog to be destroyed and finally gave [her steward] a dressing down.” Her denial of responsibility is breathtaking. Power cor- rupts, Turgenev knows; and the failure to accept any limitation to one’s thoughtless wishes makes happiness impossible. But no set of social arrangements, he understands, will elimi- nate these dangers altogether.

Nor does Turgenev believe that the people who are subject to the power of the land- owner are, by virtue of their oppression, noble. They are scheming and conniving and sometimes thoughtlessly cruel, too. Their mockery of Gerasim is limited only by their fear of his physical strength, and they do not sympathize in the least with his predicament. When Gavrila, the landowner’s steward, goes at the head of a delegation of serfs to tell Gerasim that he must get rid of Mumu once and for all, he bangs on Gerasim’s door and shouts “’Open up!’ There came the sound of smothered barking; but no answer. ’I’m telling you to open up!’ he repeated.

“’Gavrila Andreich,’ remarked Stepan from below, ’he’s deaf, he doesn’t hear.’ Every- one burst out laughing.”

There is no compassion in their laughter, not then and not at any other time in the story. Cruelty is not the province only of the landowner, and the heartlessness of the serfs toward Gerasim always reminds me of a scene from my childhood, when I was about 11 years old. I had gone to line up for tickets to a soccer match—in those days, for reasons I can no longer recapture, I was enthusiastic about the game. The line was long, and there was at least a two-hour wait. An old blind man with an accordion passed along the line, singing “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo,” while a companion held out a cap for alms. They passed some young working-class men who had a radio, and who turned the volume up to drown out his song. They laughed loudly at his bewilderment as his com- panion led him away, reduced to silence.

No one intervened or told the young men how abominably they had behaved; I was too cowardly to do so. But in that little scene, I saw man’s permanent capacity for inhumanity to man, a capacity that transcends social condition, class, or education.

An incident when I practiced medicine many years later on an island in the Pacific Ocean reinforced this lesson. Next to the small psychiatric hospital, with its yard enclosed by a high wire fence, was the leper colony. Every afternoon, the lepers would gather at the fence to mock the lunatics as they were let out for their exercise, performing their strange dances and shouting at unseen persecutors.

The victory over cruelty is never final, but, like the maintenance of freedom, requires eternal vigilance. And it requires, as in “Mumu,” the exercise of the sympathetic imagin- ation.

Turning from Turgenev to Marx (although the Manifesto appears under the names of both Marx and Engels, it was almost entirely Marx’s work), we enter a world of infinite bile— of rancor, hatred, and contempt—rather than of sorrow or compassion. It is true that Marx, like Turgenev, is on the side of the underdog, of the man with nothing, but in a wholly dis- embodied way. Where Turgenev hopes to lead us to behave humanly, Marx aims to incite us to violence. Moreover, Marx brooked no competitors in the philanthropic market. He was notoriously scathing about all would-be practical reformers: if lower class, they lacked the philosophic training necessary to penetrate to the causes of misery; if upper class, they were hypocritically trying to preserve “the system.” Only he knew the secret of turning the nightmare into a dream.

In fact, the hecatombs his followers piled up are—to the last million victims—implicit in the Manifesto. The intolerance and totalitarianism inhere in the beliefs expressed: “The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties. They have no interest separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.”

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In other words, there is no need for other parties, let alone individuals with their own personal quirks: indeed, since the Communists so perfectly express the interests of the proletariat, anyone opposed to the Communists must, by definition, be opposed to the in- terests of the proletariat. Moreover, since the Communists “openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions,” it follows that Lenin and Stalin were perfectly right in eliminating their opponents by force. And since, according to Marx, the ideas that people have are determined by their position in the economic structure of society, it is not even necessary for people to declare their enmity: it can be known ex officio, as it were. The killing of the kulaks was the practical application of Marxist epistemology.

As you read the Manifesto, a ghostly procession of Marxist catastrophes seems to rise up from it, as from the witches’ brew in Macbeth. Take for example points 8 and 9 of the Communist program (interestingly, as in God’s program published on Mount Sinai, there were ten in all): “8. Equal liability to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with industry, promotion of the gradual elimina- tion of the contradictions between town and countryside.” Those who experienced Pol Pot’s regime, and Ceauüsescu’s “systematization,” which demolished villages and replaced them with half-completed high-rise apartments in the middle of fields, will have no difficulty in recognizing the provenance of their misfortunes.

The Manifesto makes no mention of individual human life, except to deny its possibility under present conditions. True, Marx mentions a few authors by name, but only to pour heavily Teutonic scorn and contumely upon them. For him, there are no individuals, or true humans, at all. “In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.”

It is no wonder, then, that Marx speaks only in categories: the bourgeois, the proletar- ian. For him, individual men are but clones, their identity with vast numbers of others being caused not by the possession of the same genes, but by that of the same relations to the economic system. Why study a man, when you know Men?

Nor is this the only generalization in the Manifesto that reduces the entire population of men to mere ciphers: “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. . . . But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution. . . . The bourgeois claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of par- ent and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of modern industry, all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor. . . . The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. . . . Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives. Bourgeois marriage is in reality a sys- tem of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically con- cealed, an openly legalized community of women.”

There is no mistaking the hatred and rage of these words; but anger, while a real and powerful emotion, is not necessarily an honest one, nor is it by any means always ungrati- fying. There is a permanent temptation, particularly for intellectuals, to suppose that one’s virtue is proportional to one’s hatred of vice, and that one’s hatred of vice is in turn to be measured by one’s vehemence of denunciation. But when Marx wrote these words, he must surely have known that they were, at best, a savage caricature, at worst a deliberate distor- tion calculated to mislead and to destroy.

As a family man, he himself was not an unqualified success. Although he lived a bour- geois existence, it was a disorderly, bohemian one, flamboyantly squalid. Two of his daugh- ters, Laura and Eleanor, committed suicide, partly as a result of his interference in their

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lives. But not even his worst enemy could claim that he saw in his wife, Jenny von Westpha- len, “a mere instrument of production,” a spinning jenny, so to speak. Half his youthful poems were addressed to her in the most passionate and romantic terms only a few years before he wrote the Manifesto; and though their relations had later cooled, he was neverthe- less deeply affected by her death and did not long survive her. Even he, whose information about people came mainly from books, must have known that the Manifesto’s depiction of the relations between men and women was grossly distorted. His rage was therefore—as is so much modern rage—entirely synthetic, perhaps an attempt to assume a generosity of spirit, or love of mankind, that he knew he did not have but felt he ought to have.

His lack of interest in the individual lives and fates of real human beings—what Mikhail Bakunin once called his lack of sympathy with the human race—shines out in his failure to recognize the often noble attempts by workingmen to maintain a respectable family life in the face of the greatest difficulties. Was it really true that they had no family ties, and that their children were mere articles of commerce? For whom were they mere articles of com- merce? It is typical of Marx’s unrigorous mind that he should leave the answer ambiguous, as if commerce could exist independently of the people carrying it on. Only his outrage, like the grin of the Cheshire cat, is clear.

Marx’s firm grasp of unreality is also evident in his failure to imagine what would hap- pen when, through the implementation of the ideas of radical intellectuals influenced by his mode of thinking, the bourgeois family really would break down, when “the practical ab- sence of the family” really would become an undeniable social fact. Surely the increased sexual jealousy, the widespread child neglect and abuse, and the increase in the interper- sonal violence (all in conditions of unprecedented material prosperity) should have been utterly predictable to anybody with a deeper knowledge than his of the human heart.

Compare Marx’s crudity with Turgenev’s subtlety, alluded to by Henry James, who knew Turgenev in Paris and wrote an essay about him a year after his death: “Like all men of a large pattern, he was composed of many different pieces; and what was always striking in him was the mixture of simplicity with the fruit of the most various observation. . . . I had [once] been moved to say of him that he had the aristocratic temperament: a remark which in the light of further knowledge seemed singularly inane. He was not subject to any defini- tion of that sort, and to say that he was democratic would be (though his political ideal was democracy) to give an equally superficial account of him. He felt and understood the op- posite sides of life; he was imaginative, speculative, anything but literal. . . . Our Anglo- Saxon, Protestant, moralistic, conventional standards were far away from him, and he judged things with a freedom and spontaneity in which I found a perpetual refreshment. His sense of beauty, his love of truth and right, were the foundation of his nature; but half the charm of his conversation was that one breathed an air in which cant phrases and arbitrary measurements simply sounded ridiculous.”

I don’t think anyone could have said this of Marx. When he wrote that “the working- men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got,” he wrote as a man who, as far as is known, had never taken the trouble to canvass the living views of anyone but himself. His pronouncement of the death of nationalist feeling was premature, to say the least. And when he wrote that the bourgeois would lament the cultural loss that the proletarian revolution inevitably entailed, but that “that culture . . . is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine,” he failed to acknowledge the profoundly moving attempts of workingmen in Britain to acquire that very culture as a liberating and ennobling agency. It needs very little effort of the imagination to understand what fortitude it took to work in a Victorian factory by day and read Ruskin and Carlyle, Hume and Adam Smith by night, as so many workingmen did (volumes from their lending libraries and insti- tutes are still to be found in British secondhand bookshops); but it was an effort that Marx was never prepared to make, because he did not consider it worthwhile to make it. One

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might ask whether he has not set a pattern for hordes of cultivated brutes in the academy, who have destroyed for others what they themselves have benefited from.

Very different from all this, the sympathy that Turgenev expressed for the downtrod- den was for living, breathing human beings. Because he understood what Henry James called “the opposite sides of life,” he understood that there was no denouement to history, no inevitable apocalypse, after which all contradictions would be resolved, all conflicts cease, when men would be good because arrangements were perfect, and when political and economic control would turn into mere administration for the benefit of everyone with- out distinction. Marx’s eschatology, lacking all common sense, all knowledge of human nature, rested on abstractions that were to him more real than the actual people around him. Of course, Turgenev knew the value of generalizations and could criticize institutions such as serfdom, but without any silly utopian illusions: for he knew that Man was a fallen creature, capable of improvement, perhaps, but not of perfection. There would therefore be no hecatombs associated with Turgenev’s name.

Marx claimed to know Man, but as for men other than his enemies—he knew them not. Despite being a Hegelian dialectician, he was not interested in the opposite sides of life. Neither kindness nor cruelty moved him: men were simply the eggs from which a glori- ous omelet would one day be made. And he would be instrumental in making it.

When we look at our social reformers—their language, their concerns, their style, the categories in which they think—do they resemble Marx or Turgenev more? Turgenev—who wrote a wonderful essay entitled “Hamlet and Don Quixote,” a title that speaks for itself— would not have been surprised to discover that the Marxist style had triumphed.

By a curious twist of fate, the coldhearted Marxist utopians in Russia found a cynical use for Turgenev’s story “Mumu,” which they printed in tens of millions of copies, to justify their own murderous ruthlessness in destroying every trace of the former society. Could any more terrible and preposterous fate have befallen Turgenev’s tale than that it should have been used to justify mass murder? Could there be any more eloquent example of the ability of intellectual abstraction to empty men’s hearts and minds of a sense of shame and of true feeling for humanity?

Let us recall, however, one detail of Turgenev’s and Marx’s biographical trajectory in which they differed. When Marx was buried, hardly anyone came to his funeral (in poetic revenge, perhaps, for his failure to attend the funeral of his father, who adored and sacri- ficed much for him). When the remains of Turgenev returned to St. Petersburg from France, scores of thousands of people, including the humblest of the humble, turned out to pay their respects—and with very good reason.

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Ibsen and His Discontents Theodore Dalrymple

A family, Dr. Johnson once wrote, is a little kingdom, torn with factions and exposed to revolutions. This is a less than ringing endorsement of family life, of course; and the great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, whose childhood had been as unhappy as Johnson’s, would have agreed with this assessment. But Johnson, unlike Ibsen, went on to remark that all judgment is comparative: that to judge an institution or convention rightly, one must compare it with its alternatives. Marriage has many pains, says Johnson in Rasselas, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Johnson saw human existence as inseparable from dissatisfaction. It is man’s nature to suffer from incompatible desires simultaneously—for example, wanting both security and excitement. When he has one, he longs for the other, so that contentment is rarely un- alloyed and never lasting.

However, most people find it more comforting to believe in perfectibility than in imperfectibility—an example of what Dr. Johnson called the triumph of hope over experi- ence. The notion of imperfectibility not only fans existential anxieties, but also—by precluding simple solutions to all human problems—places much tougher intellectual demands upon us than utopianism does. Not every question can be answered by reference to a few simple abstract principles that, if followed with sufficient rigor, will supposedly lead to perfection— which is why conservatism is so much more difficult to reduce to slogans than its much more abstract competitors.

The yearning for principles that will abolish human dissatisfactions helps account for the continuing popularity of Ibsen’s three most frequently performed plays: A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and Hedda Gabler. Each is a ferocious attack on marriage as a powerful source of much human unhappiness and frustration. It is this indictment that gives Ibsen his extraor- dinary modernity, a modernity that has only seemed to increase over the century and a quarter since he wrote these plays.

The scale of Ibsen’s achievement is astonishing. Almost single-handedly, he gave birth to the modern theater. Before him, the nineteenth century, so rich in other literary forms, produced hardly a handful of plays that can still be performed, and the literary power of his work has never since been equaled. It was he who first realized that mundane daily life, re- layed in completely naturalistic language, contained within it all the ingredients of tragedy. That he should have transformed the whole of Western drama while writing in an obscure language that was considered primitive—and that he should have produced in 20 years more performable plays than all the British and French playwrights of his era put together, despite their incomparably longer and richer theatrical traditions—is almost miraculous.

Though Ibsen often claimed to be a poet rather than a social critic, lacking any didac- tic purpose, the evidence of his letters and speeches (quite apart from the internal evidence of the plays themselves) proves quite the opposite—that he was almost incandescent with moral purpose. Contemporaries had no doubt of it; and the first book about him in English, Bernard Shaw’s Quintessence of Ibsenism, published in 1891 while Ibsen still had many years to live and plays to write, stated forthrightly that his works stood or fell by the moral precepts they advocated. Shaw thought that Ibsen was a Joshua come to blow down the

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walls of moral convention. I think this judgment is wrong: Ibsen was far too great a writer to be only a moralist, and it is possible still to read or watch his plays with pleasure and in- struction, without swallowing what he has to say hook, line, and sinker.

Still, Ibsen’s influence extended far beyond the theater. He wrote as much to be read as to be performed; and his plays were published, often in relatively large editions, to catch the Christmas market. And Shaw was hardly alone in perceiving their unconventionality. Ghosts, for instance, was initially considered so controversial, not to say filthy, that its printed version was handed round semi-clandestinely, few people daring to be seen reading it. By the end of his life, however, a quarter of a century later, most European intellectuals had come to take its moral outlook virtually for granted, and anyone who continued to re- sist its teachings seemed mired in an unenlightened past.

The comparatively easy acceptance of what Shaw called Ibsenism—20 or 30 years is a long time in the life of a man, but not of mankind—means that Ibsen must have ex- pressed what many people had thought and wanted to hear but had not dared to say. He was thus both a cause and a symptom of social change; and like many such figures, he was partly right and largely wrong.

What are his moral teachings, at least in the three plays that have forged his enduring image? He was as rabidly hostile to conventional family life as Marx or Engels, but he was a much more effective and powerful critic, because his criticism did not remain on the level of philosophical abstraction. On the contrary, he laid bare the factions and revolutions of family life, its lies and miseries, in compelling and believable dramas; and while it has al- ways been open to the reader or viewer to ascribe the moral pathology exhibited in these plays to the particular characters or neuroses of their dramatis personae alone, clearly this was not Ibsen’s intention. He was not a forerunner of Jerry Springer; his aim was not titilla- tion or a mere display of the grotesque. He intends us to regard the morbidity his plays anatomize as typical and quintessential (to use Shaw’s word), the inevitable consequence of certain social conventions and institutions. He invites us implicitly, and explicitly in A Doll’s House and Ghosts, to consider alternative ways of living in order to eliminate what he considers the avoidable misery of the pathology he brings to light.

It is hardly surprising that feminists celebrate Ibsen. For one thing, his three oft- performed plays repeatedly suggest that marriage is but formalized and legalized prostitu- tion. In A Doll’s House, Mrs. Linde, a childhood friend whom Nora has just encountered af- ter an absence of many years, tells Nora that her marriage has been an unhappy one (I use throughout Michael Meyer’s excellent translations):

Nora: Tell me, is it really true that you didn’t love your husband? . . . Mrs. Linde: Well, my mother was still alive; and she was helpless and bedridden. And I

had my two little brothers to take care of. I didn’t feel I could say no. Nora: . . . He was rich then, was he? In Ghosts, too, marriage for money is a prominent theme. The carpenter Engstrand

suggests to Regina, who at this point thinks she is his daughter, that she should marry for that reason. After all, he himself married Regina’s mother for money. Like Regina, she had been a servant in the Alving household, until Lieutenant Alving got her pregnant. Mrs. Alv- ing discharged her, giving her some money before she left, and then Engstrand married her. Pastor Manders discusses the matter with Lieutenant Alving’s widow:

Manders: How much was it you gave the girl? Mrs. Alving: Fifty pounds. Manders: Just imagine! To go and marry a fallen woman for a paltry fifty pounds! The implication is that the transaction would have been reasonable, in the eyes of the

respectable pastor, if the sum had been larger: as large as the sum that had “bought” Mrs. Alving. At the play’s outset, when she is making arrangements for the opening of an orphanage named in memory of her husband, she explains something to Pastor Manders:

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Mrs. Alving: The annual donations that I have made to this Orphanage add up to the sum . . . which made Lieutenant Alving, in his day, “a good match.”

Manders: I understand— Mrs. Alving: It was the sum with which he bought me. Hedda Gabler alludes only slightly less directly to the mercenary motive of marriage.

Mrs. Elvsted is another old acquaintance of the main female character, who turns up after an absence of many years and has had an unhappy marriage. She went to Mr. Elvsted as a housekeeper and, after the death of his first wife, married him:

Hedda: But he loves you, surely? In his own way? Mrs. Elvsted: Oh, I don’t know. I think he finds me useful. And then I don’t cost much

to keep. I’m cheap. Marriage, then, is a financial bargain, and a pretty poor one—at least for women. But,

of course, there are other reasons for marital unhappiness, especially the irreducible in- compatibility of man and wife. In fact, any apparent happiness is a facade or a lie, main- tained by social pressure.

In A Doll’s House, for example, Nora appears at first to be happily married to Torvald Helmer, a young lawyer on his way up. Helmer treats her like a little girl, sometimes chiding and sometimes indulging her, but never taking her seriously as an adult; and she plays along, acting the featherbrained young woman to almost nauseating perfection. Unbe- knownst to Helmer, however, Nora has previously saved his life by obtaining a loan, se- cured by a forged signature, that allowed them to spend a year in Italy, whose warmer cli- mate cured the disease that would have killed him.

When Helmer discovers what she has done, he is not grateful and does not see her forgery as a manifestation of her love for him; on the contrary, he condemns her unmerci- fully and tells her that she is not fit to be mother to their three children. In fact, Helmer in- terprets the episode as if he were the lawyer prosecuting her rather than her husband.

The scales fall from Nora’s eyes. Their life together, she sees, has been not only an outward but an inward sham: he is not the man that she, blinded by her acceptance of the social role assigned to her, took him for. She tells him that she is leaving him; and although Helmer offers a more adult, equal relationship between them, it is too late.

Undoubtedly, Ibsen was pointing to a genuine and serious problem of the time—the assumed inability of women to lead any but a domestic existence, without intellectual con- tent (and, in fact, the play was based upon a real case). But if this were its principal moral focus, the play would have lost its impact by now, since the point has long been conceded. Ibsen was not, in fact, a devotee of women’s rights: addressing a conference on the subject in Oslo, he said, “I have never written any play to further a social purpose. . . . I am not even very sure what Women’s Rights really are.” With no faith in legislative or institutional solutions to problems, Ibsen had a much larger target: the change of people from within, so that they might finally express their true nature unmediated by the distortions of society.

In Ghosts, Mrs. Alving’s marriage is unhappy not just because she was “bought.” Her husband was a philandering alcoholic, and she fled from him after a year of marriage, tak- ing refuge in Pastor Manders’s house. Although Manders and Mrs. Alving felt a mutual attraction—indeed, fell in love—the pastor persuaded her that she had a religious duty to return to her husband. Despite Alving’s promise to change, which at the beginning of the play Pastor Manders believes that he kept, Alving continued his dissolute ways until his death. Mrs. Alving made it her task to conceal his conduct from the world and from her son, Oswald. But when Alving impregnated the servant with Regina (who is thus Oswald’s half- sister), she sent Oswald away and would not allow him to return home while Alving was still alive. While Alving drank himself to death, Mrs. Alving made a success of his estate—a success that she allowed to be attributed to Alving, permitting him to die in the odor not only of sanctity but of success.

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The lies of Mrs. Alving’s life spring from the false sense of shame—what will others say?—that traps her into returning to Alving and into covering up for him. Similarly, Man- ders, as Ibsen portrays him, represents a bogus moralism, in whose code appearance is more important than reality or inner meaning, and avoidance of shame is a better guide to conduct than conscience. This code leads Manders to make wrong decisions even in banal practical matters—for example, whether the orphanage should be insured or not. He dis- cusses this question with Mrs. Alving, noting that there had nearly been a fire there the day before. Mrs. Alving concludes that the orphanage should be insured. But then Manders in- dulges in a little oily and dishonest sanctimony:

Manders: Ah, but wait a minute, Mrs. Alving. Let us consider this question a little more closely. . . . The Orphanage is, so to speak, to be consecrated to a higher purpose. . . . As far as I personally am concerned, I see nothing offensive in securing ourselves against all eventualities. . . . But what is the feeling among the local people out here? . . . Are there many people with the right to an opinion . . . who might take offence? . . . I am thinking chiefly of people sufficiently independent and influential to make it impossible for one to ignore their opinions altogether. . . . You see! In town we have a great many such people. Followers of other denominations. People might very easily come to the conclusion that neither you nor I have sufficient trust in the ordinance of a Higher Power. . . . I know—my conscience is clear, that is true. But all the same, we couldn’t prevent a false and unfavor- able interpretation being placed on our action. . . . And I can’t altogether close my eyes to the difficult—I might even say deeply embarrassing—position in which I might find myself.

Of course, the opinions of the people whom Manders is propitiating are just as bogus as his own; and when, the next day, the orphanage does in fact burn down, because of Manders’s carelessness with a candle, he not only deems it God’s judgment on the Alving family but is clearly worried more about his own reputation than about anything else. In fact, he finds someone else—Engstrand, the carpenter—willing to take the blame for what he has done. Manders has no conscience, only a fear of what others will say.

His explanation of why he persuaded Mrs. Alving to return to her husband displays the same pharisaical fear of public opinion:

Manders: . . . a wife is not appointed to be her husband’s judge. It was your duty hum- bly to bear that cross which a higher will had seen fit to assign to you. But instead you . . . hazard your good name, and very nearly ruin the reputation of others.

Mrs. Alving: Others? Another’s, you mean? Manders: It was extremely inconsiderate of you to seek refuge with me. Once again, there can be no doubt that Ibsen has most accurately put his finger on a

pseudo-morality in which shame or social disapproval takes the place of personal con- science or true moral principle, and in whose name people—especially women—are made to suffer misery, degradation, and even violence. This is no mere figment of Ibsen’s imagi- nation. Indeed, I have observed the consequences of the operation of this pseudo-morality among my young Muslim patients, who are made to suffer the torments of a living hell and are sometimes even killed by their male relatives, solely to preserve the “good name” of the family in the opinion of others.

By no means, then, was Ibsen exaggerating. When he said that his fellow countrymen were a nation of serfs living in a free country, he meant that their fear of shame and notions of respectability enslaved and oppressed them, even in a land without political oppression.

The third of these portraits of unhappy marriages, Hedda Gabler, is the least interest- ing because it is implausible. Hedda Gabler, the daughter of a general, marries beneath herself, choosing an intellectual who hopes for a chair at the university, though he is actu- ally a petty pedant, without originality or flair. In fact, he is such a milksop, such a pathetic ninny, that it is hard to believe that Hedda, with her very high conception of her own abilities and entitlements, would have married him in the first place. It is therefore difficult to take

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her consequent travails very seriously. But she ends up killing herself, because life, with the bourgeois options it currently offers her, is not worth living.

It is in A Doll’s House and Ghosts that Ibsen offers us not just criticisms but positive prescriptions. And it is because his prescriptions are those of the 1960s, though written 80 years earlier, that we find him still so astonishingly modern and prescient.

When, in A Doll’s House, Nora tells her husband that she is leaving him, he asks her (just as Pastor Manders would have done) whether she has thought of what other people will say. He then goes on to ask her about her duty:

Helmer: Can you neglect your most sacred duties? Nora: What do you call my most sacred duties? Helmer: Do I have to tell you? Your duties to your husband, and your children. This crucial passage continues with a little psychobabble followed by the justification

of radical egotism: Nora: I have another duty which is equally sacred. Helmer: . . . What on earth could that be? Nora: My duty to myself. Nora goes on to explain that she is first and foremost a human being—or that, anyway,

she must try to become one. (This sentiment reminds one of Marx’s view that men will be- come truly human only after the revolution has brought about the end of class society. All who had gone before, apparently—and all of Marx’s contemporaries—were less than truly human. Little wonder that untold millions were done to death by those who shared this phi- losophy.) So if Nora is not yet a human being, what will make her one? Philosophical au- tonomy is the answer:

Nora: . . . I’m no longer prepared to accept what people say and what’s written in books. I must think things out for myself and try to find my own answer.

And the criterion she is to use, to judge whether her own answer is correct, is whether it is right—“or anyway, whether it is right for me.” Postmodernism is not so very modern after all, it seems: Ibsen got there first.

Moments later, Nora makes clear what the consequences of her new freedom are: Nora: I don’t want to see the children. . . . As I am now I can be nothing to them. And with these chilling words, she severs all connection with her three children, for-

ever. Her duty to herself leaves no room for a moment’s thought for them. They are as dust in the balance.

When, as I have, you have met hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people abandoned in their childhood by one or both of their parents, on essentially the same grounds (“I need my own space”), and you have seen the lasting despair and damage that such abandon- ment causes, you cannot read or see A Doll’s House without anger and revulsion. Now we see what Ibsen meant when he said that women’s rights were of no fundamental interest to him. He was out to promote something much more important: universal egotism.

It is clear from Ghosts as well that Ibsen conceived of a society in which everyone was his own Descartes, working out everything from first principles—or at least what he or she believed to be first principles. For example, when Pastor Manders arrives for the first time in Mrs. Alving’s house, he finds some books that he considers dangerously liberal:

Mrs. Alving: But what do you object to in these books? Manders: Object to? You surely don’t imagine I spend my time studying such

publications? Mrs. Alving: In other words, you’ve no idea what you’re condemning? Manders: I’ve read quite enough about these writings to disapprove of them. Mrs. Alving: Don’t you think you ought to form your own opinion—? Manders: My dear Mrs. Alving, there are many occasions in life when one must rely on

the judgment of others.

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Coming from a character whom Ibsen scorns as ridiculous and bigoted, these words, which contain an obvious truth, are meant to be rejected out of hand. In Ibsen’s philosophy, everyone— at least Nature’s aristocrats, for in fact Ibsen was no egalitarian or democrat—must exam- ine every question for himself and arrive at his own answer: for example, whether the Proto- cols of the Elders of Zion is historically true—or at least historically true for him.

The object, or at least the obvious consequence, of such independence of judgment is the breakdown of the artificial, socially constructed barriers that constrain behavior and (in theory) prevent people from reaching a state of complete happiness, which is to say ab- sence of frustration. Unhappiness in all the plays results from not having followed the heart’s inclinations, either by not doing what one wants, or by doing what one does not want, all to comply with some social obligation enforced by the Pastor Manderses of the world:

Manders: . . . your marriage was celebrated in an orderly fashion and in full accor- dance with the law.

Mrs. Alving: All this talk about law and order. I often think that is what causes all the unhappiness in the world.

Mrs. Alving’s son, Oswald, has returned home from Paris not only to attend the open- ing of the orphanage named for his father, but also because he is ill, with tertiary syphilis. He is destined to die soon in a state either of madness or dementia, according to the Pari- sian specialist (French syphilologists knew more about the disease than any other doctors in the world, and Ibsen was always well informed about medical matters).

At first, Oswald—still believing that his father was a fine, upstanding man—concludes that he contracted the disease by his own conduct. In fact, he has congenital syphilis, passed on by his father. (It was formerly objected that Oswald could not have caught syphilis from his father alone, but in fact Oswald’s father could have passed on the germs to Oswald through his mother, infecting her only with a subclinical case.) For her part, Mrs. Alving is in no doubt that society is responsible for her husband’s (and thus her son’s) disease:

Mrs. Alving: And this happy, carefree child—for he [Alving] was like a child, then—had to live here in a little town that had no joy to offer him. . . . And in the end the inevitable happened. . . . Your poor father never found any outlet for the joy of life that was in him. And I didn’t bring any sunshine into his home. . . . They had taught me about duty and things like that and I sat here for too long believing in them. In the end everything became a matter of duty—my duty, and his duty, and—I’m afraid I made his home intolerable for your poor father.

The way of avoiding such tragedies is for everyone to follow his own inclinations, more or less as they arise.

Only associations free of institutional constraint will set men free. Earlier in the play, Oswald has described to the scandalized Manders the informal families among whom he mixed in bohemian Paris, after Manders tells Mrs. Alving that Oswald has never had the op- portunity to know a real home.

Oswald: I beg your pardon, sir, but there you’re quite mistaken. Manders: Oh? I thought you had spent practically all your time in artistic circles.

Oswald: I have. Manders: Mostly among young artists. Oswald: Yes. Manders: But I thought most of those people lacked the means to support a family and

make a home for themselves. Oswald: Some of them can’t afford to get married, sir. Manders: Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Oswald: But that doesn’t mean they can’t have a home. . . . Manders: But I’m not speaking about bachelor establishments. By a home I mean a

family establishment, where a man lives with his wife and children.

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Oswald: Quite. Or with his children and their mother. We go on to learn that these informal families, precisely because they are based not

upon convention, duty, or social pressure but upon unconstrained love, are not only equal to conventional families but much superior. Oswald talks of the peace and harmony that he found among them: “I have never heard an offensive word there, far less ever witnessed anything that could be called immoral.”

And he adds: Oswald: No; do you know when and where I have encountered immorality in artistic

circles? Manders: No, I don’t, thank heaven. Oswald: Well, I shall tell you. I have encountered it when one or another of our model

husbands and fathers came down to look around a little on their own. . . . Then we learned a few things. Those gentlemen were able to tell us about places and things of which we had never dreamed.

Not only are informal arrangements happier, therefore, than formal ones, but they pre- vent the spread of the very syphilis from which Oswald suffers. Suffice it to say that this has not been my experience of the last 15 years of medical practice.

The right—indeed, the duty—of everyone to decide his own moral principles and to decide what is right for him, without the Ghosts of the past to misguide him, leads Mrs. Alving to approve of incest, if incest is what makes people happy. While Oswald is still unaware that Regina is his half-sister, he falls in love with her (very quickly, it must be said), and she with him. He wants to marry her.

Mrs. Alving discusses the matter with Manders, who by now is aware of the consan- guinity of Oswald and Regina:

Manders: . . . That would be dreadful. Mrs. Alving: If I knew . . . that it would make him happy— Manders: Yes? What then? Mrs. Alving: If only I weren’t such an abject coward, I’d say to him: “Marry her, or make

what arrangements you please. As long as you’re honest and open about it—” Manders: . . . You mean a legal marriage! . . . It’s absolutely unheard of—! Mrs. Alving: Unheard of, did you say? Put your hand on your heart, Pastor Manders,

and tell me—do you really believe there aren’t married couples like that to be found in this country?

This is an argument typical of people who wish to abolish boundaries: if these bound- aries are not—because they cannot be—adhered to with perfect consistency, then they should be obliterated, as they can only give rise to hypocrisy. Mrs. Alving adds the kind of smart-aleck comment that has ever been the stock-in-trade of those to whom boundaries are so irksome: “Well, we all stem from a relationship of that kind, so we are told.”

It is not that Mrs. Alving fails to believe in right and wrong. But what is wrong is be- trayal of one’s inclinations. When Manders describes his painful self-control in sending her back to her husband when he was in love with her himself, he asks whether that was a crime. Mrs. Alving replies, “Yes, I think so.”

By the end of the play, Oswald has asked his mother to kill him with a morphine injec- tion if he has another attack of madness or dementia. In the last scene, Oswald does have such an attack, and Mrs. Alving’s last words in the play, concerning this act of euthanasia, are, “No; no; no! Yes! No; no!” We never find out whether she goes ahead, and Ibsen refused to say. But he clearly saw it as a matter for everyone to make up his own mind about, to work out for himself, free of legal—which is to say, conventional and institutional— guidance.

The modernity of Ibsen’s thought hardly needs further emphasis. The elevation of emotion over principle, of inclination over duty, of rights over responsibilities, of ego over the claims of others; the impatience with boundaries and the promotion of the self as the

176 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

measure of all things: what could be more modern or gratifying to our current sensibility? Not surprisingly, Ibsen regarded youth rather than age as the fount of wisdom. “Youth,” he assures us, “has an instinctive genius which unconsciously hits upon the right answer.”

And Ibsen was profoundly modern in another respect too. In his own existence, he was very conventional. Although attracted to women other than his wife, he always resisted temptation; he dressed correctly; he ostentatiously wore the decorations awarded him by the crowned heads of Europe—which, notoriously, he solicited. He was extremely cautious and careful with money. His habits and tastes were profoundly bourgeois, and he was regu- lar in his habits to the point of rigidity. He could be extremely prickly when he felt his own dignity affronted, and he was a great lover of formality. His wife called him Ibsen, and he signed his letters to her Henrik Ibsen, not Henrik.

His character was formed in an atmosphere of Protestant Pietism. He was inhibited to a degree unusual even among his compatriots. As a child, he experienced the trauma of his father’s bankruptcy and the descent from prosperity and social respect to poverty and hu- miliation. He both hated the society in which he grew up and craved high status within it.

Ibsen’s character was fixed, but he longed to be different. He was Calvin wanting to be Dionysius. If he couldn’t change himself, at least he could change others, and society itself. Like many modern intellectuals, he had difficulty distinguishing his personal problems and neuroses from social problems. Shortly before he wrote Ghosts, his son, Sigurd, who had lived almost all his life abroad, had been refused admission to Christiania (Oslo) University by the governing ecclesiastical authorities until he had met such entry requirements as a test of proficiency in Norwegian. Ibsen was furious. He wrote, “I shall raise a memorial to that black band of theologians.” And he did—Pastor Manders.

There is no evidence that Ibsen ever thought, much less cared, about the effect of his principles on society as a whole. This indifference is hardly surprising, given that he thought that nothing good could come of the great herd of mankind, which he termed the majority, the masses, the mob. He believed that he himself belonged to an aristocracy of intellect, and it is of course in the nature of aristocrats that they should have privileges not accorded to others. But whether we like it or not, we live in a democratic age, when the privileges claimed by some will soon be claimed by all. The charmingly insouciant free love of bohe- mians is soon enough transmuted into the violent chaos of the slums.

“[Ghosts] contains the future,” said Ibsen. He also said that he is most right who is most in tune with the future. But he did not display any interest or foresight into what that future might contain: for him, not whatever is, is right, but whatever will be, is right. Whether the scores of millions who suffered and died in the twentieth century because of the de- struction of moral boundaries would have agreed with him is another matter.

Chapter 11 177

What is Poverty? Theodore Dalrymple

What do we mean by poverty? Not what Dickens or Blake or Mayhew meant. Today, no one seriously expects to go hungry in England or to live without running water or medical care or even TV. Poverty has been redefined in industrial countries, so that anyone at the lower end of the income distribution is poor ex officio, as it were—poor by virtue of having less than the rich. And of course by this logic, the only way of eliminating poverty is by an egali- tarian redistribution of wealth—even if the society as a whole were to become poorer as a result.

Such redistribution was the goal of the welfare state. But it has not eliminated poverty, despite the vast sums expended, and despite the fact that the poor are now substantially richer—indeed are not, by traditional standards, poor at all. As long as the rich exist, so must the poor, as we now define them.

Certainly they are in squalor—a far more accurate description of their condition than poverty—despite a threefold increase in per-capita income, including that of the poor, since the end of the last war. Why they should be in this condition requires an explanation—and to call that condition poverty, using a word more appropriate to Mayhew’s London than to today’s reality, prevents us from grasping how fundamentally the lot of “the poor” has changed since then. The poor we shall always have with us, no doubt: but today they are not poor in the traditional way.

The English poor live shorter and less healthy lives than their more prosperous com- patriots. Even if you didn’t know the statistics, their comparative ill health would be obvious on the most casual observation of rich and slum areas, just as Victorian observers noted that the poor were on average a head shorter than the rich, due to generations of inferior nourishment and hard living conditions. But the reasons for today’s difference in health are not economic. It is by no means the case that the poor can’t afford medicine or a nourishing diet; nor do they live in overcrowded houses lacking proper sanitation, as in Mayhew’s time, or work 14 backbreaking hours a day in the foul air of mines or mills. Epidemiologists esti- mate that the higher rate of cigarette consumption among the poor accounts for half the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest classes in England—and to smoke that much takes money.

Notoriously, too, the infant mortality rate is twice as high in the lowest social class as in the highest. But the infant mortality rate of illegitimate births is twice that of legitimate ones, and the illegitimacy rate rises steeply as you descend the social scale: so the decline of marriage almost to the vanishing point in the lowest social class might well be respon- sible for most of its excess infant mortality. It is a way of life, not poverty per se, that kills. The commonest cause of death between the ages of 15 and 44 is now suicide, which has increased most precipitously precisely among those who live in the underclass world of temporary step-parenthood and of conduct unrestrained either by law or convention.

Just as it is easier to recognize ill health in someone you haven’t seen for some time rather than in someone you meet daily, so a visitor coming into a society from elsewhere often can see its character more clearly than those who live in it. Every few months, doctors from countries like the Philippines and India arrive fresh from the airport to work for a

178 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

year’s stint at my hospital. It is fascinating to observe their evolving response to British squalor.

At the start, they are uniformly enthusiastic about the care that we unsparingly and unhesitatingly give to everyone, regardless of economic status. They themselves come from cities—Manila, Bombay, Madras—where many of the cases we see in our hospital would simply be left to die, often without succor of any kind. And they are impressed that our care extends beyond the merely medical: that no one goes without food or clothing or shelter, or even entertainment. There seems to be a public agency to deal with every con- ceivable problem. For a couple of weeks, they think this all represents the acme of civiliza- tion, especially when they recall the horrors at home. Poverty—as they know it— has been abolished.

Before very long, though, they start to feel a vague unease. A Filipina doctor, for ex- ample, asked me why so few people seemed grateful for what was done for them. What prompted her question was an addict who, having collapsed from an accidental overdose of heroin, was brought to our hospital. He required intensive care to revive him, with doctors and nurses tending him all night. His first words to the doctor when he suddenly regained consciousness were, “Get me a fucking roll-up” (a hand-rolled cigarette). His imperious rudeness didn’t arise from mere confusion: he continued to treat the staff as if they had kidnapped him and held him in the hospital against his will to perform experiments upon him. “Get me the fuck out of here!” There was no acknowledgment of what had been done for him, let alone gratitude for it. If he considered that he had received any benefit from his stay at all, well, it was simply his due.

My doctors from Bombay, Madras, or Manila observe this kind of conduct open- mouthed. At first they assume that the cases they see are a statistical quirk, a kind of sam- pling error, and that given time they will encounter a better, more representative cross sec- tion of the population. Gradually, however, it dawns upon them that what they have seen is representative. When every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude.

Case after case causes them to revise their initial favorable opinion. Before long, they have had experience of hundreds, and their view has changed entirely. Last week, for ex- ample, to the amazement of a doctor recently arrived from Madras, a woman in her late twenties entered our hospital with the most common condition that brings patients to us: a deliberate overdose. At first she would say nothing more than that she wanted to depart this world, that she had had enough of it.

I inquired further. Just before she took the overdose, her ex-boyfriend, the father of her eight-month-old youngest child (now staying with her ex-boyfriend’s mother), had broken into her apartment by smashing down the front door. He wrecked the apartment’s contents, broke every window, stole $110 in cash, and ripped out her telephone.

“He’s very violent, doctor.” She told me that he had broken her thumb, her ribs, and her jaw during the four years she was with him, and her face had needed stitching many times. “Last year I had to have the police out to him.”

“What happened?” “I dropped the charges. His mother said he would change.” Another of her problems was that she was now five weeks pregnant and she didn’t

want the baby. “I want to get rid of it, doctor.” “Who’s the father?” It was her violent ex-boyfriend, of course. “Did he rape you, then?” “No.” “So you agreed to have sex with him?”

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“I was drunk; there was no love in it. This baby is like a bolt out of the blue: I don’t know how it happened.”

I asked her if she thought it was a good idea to have sex with a man who had repeat- edly beaten her up, and from whom she said she wished to separate.

“It’s complicated, doctor. That’s the way life goes sometimes.” What had she known of this man before she took up with him? She met him in a club;

he moved in at once, because he had nowhere else to stay. He had a child by another woman, neither of whom he supported. He had been in prison for burglary. He took drugs. He had never worked, except for cash on the side. Of course he never gave her any of his money, instead running up her telephone bills vertiginously.

She had never married, but had two other children. The first, a daughter aged eight, still lived with her. The father was a man whom she left because she found he was having sex with 12-year-old girls. Her second child was a son, whose father was “an idiot” with whom she had slept one night. That child, now six, lived with the “idiot,” and she never saw him.

What had her experience taught her? “I don’t want to think about it. The Housing’ll charge me for the damage, and I ain’t got

the money. I’m depressed, doctor; I’m not happy. I want to move away, to get away from him.” Later in the day, feeling a little lonely, she telephoned her ex-boyfriend, and he visited her. I discussed the case with the doctor who had recently arrived from Madras, and who

felt he had entered an insane world. Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined it could be like this. There was nothing to compare with it in Madras. He asked me what would happen next to the happy couple.

“They’ll find her a new flat. They’ll buy her new furniture, television, and refrigerator, because it’s unacceptable poverty in this day and age to live without them. They’ll charge her nothing for the damage to her old flat, because she can’t pay anyway, and it wasn’t she who did it. He will get away scot-free. Once she’s installed in her new flat to escape from him, she’ll invite him there, he’ll smash it up again, and then they’ll find her somewhere else to live. There is, in fact, nothing she can do that will deprive her of the state’s obligation to house, feed, and entertain her.”

I asked the doctor from Madras if poverty was the word he would use to describe this woman’s situation. He said it was not: that her problem was that she accepted no limits to her own behavior, that she did not fear the possibility of hunger, the condemnation of her own parents or neighbors, or God. In other words, the squalor of England was not eco- nomic but spiritual, moral, and cultural.

I often take my doctors from the Third World on the short walk from the hospital to the prison nearby. It is a most instructive 800 yards. On a good day—good for didactic pur- poses, that is—there are seven or eight puddles of glass shattered into fragments lying in the gutter en route (there are never none, except during the most inclement weather, when even those most addicted to car theft control their impulses).

“Each of these little piles of smashed glass represents a car that has been broken into,” I tell them. “There will be more tomorrow, weather permitting.” The houses along the way are, as public housing goes, quite decent. The local authorities have at last accepted that herding people into giant, featureless, Le Corbusian concrete blocks was a mistake, and they have switched to the construction of individual houses. Only a few of their windows are boarded up. Certainly by comparison with housing for the poor in Bombay, Madras, or Ma- nila they are spacious and luxurious indeed. Each has a little front yard of grass, sur- rounded by a hedge, and a much larger back yard; about half have satellite dishes. Unfor- tunately, the yards are almost as full of litter as municipal garbage dumps.

I tell my doctors that in nearly nine years of taking this walk four times a week, I have never seen a single instance of anyone attempting to clean his yard. But I have seen much litter dropped; on a good day, I can even watch someone standing at the bus stop dropping something on the ground no farther than two feet from the bin.

180 AN INTRODUCTION TO MORAL PHILOSOPHY

“Why don’t they tidy up their gardens?” asks a doctor from Bombay. A good question: after all, most of the houses contain at least one person with time on

his or her hands. Whenever I have been able to ask the question, however, the answer has always been the same: I’ve told the council [the local government] about it, but they haven’t come. As tenants, they feel it is the landlord’s responsibility to keep their yards clean, and they are not prepared to do the council’s work for it, even if it means wading through garbage—as it quite literally does. On the one hand, authority cannot tell them what to do; on the other, it has an infinitude of responsibilities towards them.

I ask my Third World doctors to examine the litter closely. It gives them the impres- sion that no Briton is able to walk farther than ten yards or so without consuming junk food. Every bush, every lawn, even every tree, is festooned with chocolate wrappers or fast-food packaging. Empty cans of beer and soft drinks lie in the gutter, on the flower beds, or on top of the hedges. Again, on a good day we actually see someone toss aside the can whose contents he has just consumed, as a Russian vodka drinker throws down his glass.

Apart from the antisocial disregard of the common good that each little such act of littering implies (hundreds a week in the space of 800 yards alone), the vast quantity of food consumed in the street has deeper implications. I tell the doctors that in all my visits to the white households in the area, of which I’ve made hundreds, never—not once—have I seen any evidence of cooking. The nearest to this activity that I have witnessed is the reheating of prepared and packaged food, usually in a microwave. And by the same to- ken, I have never seen any evidence of meals taken in common as a social activity— unless two people eating hamburgers together in the street as they walk along be counted as social.

This is not to say that I haven’t seen people eating at home; on the contrary, they are often eating when I arrive. They eat alone, even if other members of the household are present, and never at table; they slump on a sofa in front of the television. Everyone in the household eats according to his own whim and timetable. Even in so elementary a matter as eating, therefore, there is no self-discipline but rather an imperative obedi- ence to impulse. Needless to say, the opportunity for conversation or sociality that a meal taken together provides is lost. English meals are thus solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

I ask the doctors to compare the shops in areas inhabited by poor whites and those where poor Indian immigrants live. It is an instructive comparison. The shops the Indians frequent are piled high with all kinds of attractive fresh produce that, by supermarket stan- dards, is astonishingly cheap. The women take immense trouble over their purchases and make subtle discriminations. There are no pre-cooked meals for them. By contrast, a shop that poor whites patronize offers a restricted choice, largely of relatively expensive pre- pared foods that at most require only the addition of hot water.

The difference between the two groups cannot be explained by differences in income, for they are insignificant. Poverty isn’t the issue. And the willingness of Indians to take trouble over what they eat and to treat meals as important social occasions that impose obligations and at times require the subordination of personal desire is indicative of an en- tire attitude to life that often permits them, despite their current low incomes, to advance up the social scale. Alarmingly, though, the natural urge of the children of immigrants to belong to the predominant local culture is beginning to create an Indian underclass (at least among young males): and the taste for fast food and all that such a taste implies is swiftly developing among them.

When such slovenliness about food extends to all other spheres of life, when people satisfy every appetite with the same minimal effort and commitment, no wonder they trap themselves in squalor. I have little trouble showing my doctors from India and the Philip- pines that most of our patients take a fast-food approach to all their pleasures, obtaining

Chapter 11 181

them no less fleetingly and unstrenuously. They have no cultural activity they can call their own, and their lives seem, even to them, empty of purpose. In the welfare state, mere sur- vival is not the achievement that it is, say, in the cities of Africa, and therefore it cannot confer the self-respect that is the precondition of self-improvement.

By the end of three months my doctors have, without exception, reversed their original opinion that the welfare state, as exemplified by England, represents the acme of civiliza- tion. On the contrary, they see it now as creating a miasma of subsidized apathy that blights the lives of its supposed beneficiaries. They come to realize that a system of welfare that makes no moral judgments in allocating economic rewards promotes antisocial ego- tism. The spiritual impoverishment of the population seems to them worse than anything they have ever known in their own countries. And what they see is all the worse, of course, because it should be so much better. The wealth that enables everyone effortlessly to have enough food should be liberating, not imprisoning. Instead, it has created a large caste of people for whom life is, in effect, a limbo in which they have nothing to hope for and noth- ing to fear, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. It is a life emptied of meaning.

“On the whole,” said one Filipino doctor to me, “life is preferable in the slums of Manila.” He said it without any illusions as to the quality of life in Manila.

These doctors have made the same journey as I, but in the reverse direction. Arriving as a young doctor in Africa 25 years ago, I was horrified at first by the physical conditions, the like of which I had never experienced before. Patients with heart failure walked 50 miles in the broiling sun, with panting breath and swollen legs, to obtain treatment—and then walked home again. Ulcerating and suppurating cancers were common. Barefoot men con- tracted tetanus from the wounds inflicted by a sand flea that laid its eggs between their toes. Tuberculosis reduced people to animated skeletons. Children were bitten by puff ad- ders and adults mauled by leopards. I saw lepers with noses that had rotted away and mad- men who wandered naked in the torrential rains.

Even the accidents were spectacular. I treated the survivors of one in Tanzania in which a truck—having no brakes, as was perfectly normal and expected in the circumstances—began to slide backward down a hill it had been climbing. It was laden with bags of corn, upon which 20 passengers, including many children, were riding. As the truck slid backward, first the passengers, then the corn, fell off. By the time I arrived, ten dead children were lined up by the side of the road, arranged in ascending order as neatly as organ pipes. They had been crushed or suffocated by the bags of corn that fell on top of them: a grimly ironic death in a country chronically short of food.

Moreover, political authority in the countries in which I worked was arbitrary, capri- cious, and corrupt. In Tanzania, for example, you could tell the representative of the sole and omnipotent political party, the Party of the Revolution, by his girth alone. Tanzanians were thin, but party men were fat. The party representative in my village sent a man to prison because the man’s wife refused to sleep with him. In Nigeria the police hired out their guns by night to the armed robbers.

Yet nothing I saw—neither the poverty nor the overt oppression—ever had the same devastating effect on the human personality as the undiscriminating welfare state. I never saw the loss of dignity, the self-centeredness, the spiritual and emotional vacuity, or the sheer ignorance of how to live, that I see daily in England. In a kind of pincer movement, therefore, I and the doctors from India and the Philippines have come to the same terrible conclusion: that the worst poverty is in England—and it is not material poverty but poverty of soul.