Solidarity, Pluralism, and the Common Good
(Part 6 of the essay)
What might Solidarity require?
The temptation as always is to look for simplistic answers -- ones usually based on unspoken ideological commitments -- rather than to be open-minded and data-driven. This is why policy matters -- not only the actual policies enacted but the process itself of crafting policy. A good idea may be implemented poorly. And the Devil of course is found in the details. While careful policy is not a panacea, it is necessary. (75)
I have neither the space nor the relevant expertise to do more than gesture here. Yet I believe the following observations and principles are relevant and reasonable in crafting policy aimed at building solidarity.
First, as we have seen, welfare liberalism entails a robust axiology -- a moral and political system of value -- which should guide us. The following points are pertinent:
Second, it is important to identify non sequiturs and red herrings:
Third, the features of American laissez-faire “capitalism” which aren’t genuinely capitalist should be ruthlessly excised.
Fourth and finally, here are some concrete things to focus on: (80)
The temptation as always is to look for simplistic answers -- ones usually based on unspoken ideological commitments -- rather than to be open-minded and data-driven. This is why policy matters -- not only the actual policies enacted but the process itself of crafting policy. A good idea may be implemented poorly. And the Devil of course is found in the details. While careful policy is not a panacea, it is necessary. (75)
I have neither the space nor the relevant expertise to do more than gesture here. Yet I believe the following observations and principles are relevant and reasonable in crafting policy aimed at building solidarity.
First, as we have seen, welfare liberalism entails a robust axiology -- a moral and political system of value -- which should guide us. The following points are pertinent:
- To not proactively seek the prosperity of all citizens -- especially those most in need -- is a bona fide act of omission. In the language of welfare liberalism, such an act is an imposition on the liberty of those in need.
- Because coercive institutions like the state are justified by their promotion of liberty, it follows that the state should actively engage in policies designed to help the disadvantaged -- even at the expense of the wealthy. The coercion involved in taxation is what it means for people with wealth to live in a just society.
- As is now widely acknowledged, equity demands a great deal more than does equality of external conditions alone. Equity means seeing a person in their full humanness -- that is, their individual, social, and historical dimensions -- and tailoring policy responses accordingly. (76)
- It is common to distinguish between equality of outcome and equality of opportunity. While the guiding intuition here -- that justice requires everyone to get a fair shake regardless of their background -- makes sense, some have (not unreasonably) claimed that it is conceptually muddled and practically unworkable. (77) However that may be, the aspiration that each individual should have the opportunity to live up to their full potential is a worthy one. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the notion of “potential” is freighted and hard to evaluate and that even those who are not living thusly still have legitimate needs.
- Structural privilege is real. The advantages conveyed to a person like myself (White, middle class, male, American, inter alia) simply in virtue of my birth, relative to others from different groups, are evident. I didn’t work for these advantages; I got them, as it were, for free. This goes some way to countering the common, if tacit, belief that outcome is determined solely by an individual’s own effort. (77A)
- A liberal state cannot dictate what “the good life” looks like for an individual. So too it must structure its laws to be agnostic to the subjective intentions of its citizens. These things said, wealth is not an ultimate good. It is a means to good things conducive to human flourishing. Leaders seeking a just society must govern with these moral facts in mind.
Second, it is important to identify non sequiturs and red herrings:
- From the fact that poverty, lack of opportunity, and inequality have always been a reality, it does not follow that it is “utopian” to seek to resolve them. (Call this the “The poor you will always have with you” gambit.) (78) It would be utopian to think that these would ever be ultimately and finally resolved. It would show a lack of moral nerve not to try.
- Any intervention by the state can have unintended consequences. Thoughtful policy considers these and adjusts as possible. (Is there a risk of creating a “culture of dependency” via aid to the poor? Yes, in the same way that bailing out banks and businesses creates “moral hazard.” Yet both responses may be warranted by the state.)
- Welfare liberalism is emphatically not committed to achieving “social justice” via a massive redistribution of wealth. It is instead committed to building and maintaining a robust social safety net and to creating as many opportunities for as many people as possible.
- Neither is this liberalism committed to “leftwing social engineering,” a sort of soft Marxism which has the goal of erasing the middle class or the wealthy. The goal is to lift as many as possible -- but especially the least advantaged.
Third, the features of American laissez-faire “capitalism” which aren’t genuinely capitalist should be ruthlessly excised.
- Competition is the beating heart of capitalism. Yet the American system is glutted with features and actors which are anti-competitive. Few things would do more to improve economic justice than hacking back at various forms of anti-competition and state capture.
- The various “breaks” that the wealthy, the middle class, and the corporate extract from the state should be recognized for what they are: subsidization of these groups at the expense of those less advantaged (or to the common good).
- The same goes for how these groups shape policy via the influence they have on the political class (by money, lobbying, and votes).
- The adage “It takes money to make money” is true. So too is: “If you’ve got lots of money, it’s easy to make even more of it!” Not only is the level of wealth inequality in American inherently obscene. The super rich and the corporate -- like massive planets that pull other objects (heedless) into their gravity -- distort the economy.
Fourth and finally, here are some concrete things to focus on: (80)
- Provide a guaranteed social minimum for each citizen. The nature and shape of such must lie with the policymakers, though it should guarantee basic parameters of health, nutrition, physical security, and education. (A suggestion is to take the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and (their successor) Sustainable Development Goals and to relativize them to an advanced economy like America’s.) (81)
- Aggressively address wealth inequality in America. The motivation is not to punish the wealthy nor is it merely to redistribute. It is rather to acknowledge that neither justice nor competition nor social stability are served when so much is owned by so few. (82)
- Fight the baleful influence of money within the political sphere.
Welfare Liberalism, Catholic Social Teaching, and the Common Good
Welfare liberalism in a democratic context, as I have outlined it, has a strong congruence with what is known as Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Whereas my moral argument for welfare liberalism turned on the question of our obligations to each other, CST is a theologico-philosophical view that starts from related-though-distinct premises to reach similar conclusions. Though grounded in the Christian tradition, its guiding ideas are not inconsistent with other religious and philosophical traditions.
While space prevents a full accounting of CST, here are key themes of particular relevance to this essay. (83)
How welfare liberalism and Catholic Social Teaching are mutually illuminating -- in particular for persons of faith -- should be evident. This is a reason why this essay’s title includes the phrase ‘common good’.
Welfare liberalism in a democratic context, as I have outlined it, has a strong congruence with what is known as Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Whereas my moral argument for welfare liberalism turned on the question of our obligations to each other, CST is a theologico-philosophical view that starts from related-though-distinct premises to reach similar conclusions. Though grounded in the Christian tradition, its guiding ideas are not inconsistent with other religious and philosophical traditions.
While space prevents a full accounting of CST, here are key themes of particular relevance to this essay. (83)
- The dignity of the human person. “[E]ach person possesses a basic dignity that comes from God ... The test therefore of every institution or policy is whether it enhances or threatens human dignity and indeed human life itself.” (84)
- A deep concern for the poor, the so-called “preferential option for the poor.” (85)
- The recognition that humans are social beings. “Communities are brought into being by the participation of individual men and women, responding to this divine impulse towards social relationships - essentially, the impulse to love and to be loved - which was implanted by the God who created them.” (86)
- The recognition that no political system is ever actually non-value-laden. “There are .... ways of structuring society which facilitate true human development and correspond to moral principles and demands. Such structures can enable people to realise their dignity and achieve their rights.” (87)
- The principle of subsidiarity, the idea that power should flow to the societal level most suited to exercise it (with particular regard for the family). (88)
- The principle of solidarity, understood as “the willingness to see others as another ‘self’, and so to regard injustice committed against another as no less serious than an injustice against oneself.” (89)
- The notion of the common good. Rather than reflecting a collectivist mindset, CST sees “the common good as a guarantor of individual rights, and as the necessary public context in which conflicts of individual rights and interests can be adjudicated or reconciled.” The common good “implies that every individual, no matter how high or low, has a duty to share in promoting the welfare of the community as well as a right to benefit from that welfare ... If any section of the population is in fact excluded from participation in the life of the community, even at a minimal level, then that is a contradiction to the concept of the common good and calls for rectification.” Indeed, “[i]f that exclusion comes about from poverty, even if only ‘relative poverty’, then that poverty demands attention.” (90)
How welfare liberalism and Catholic Social Teaching are mutually illuminating -- in particular for persons of faith -- should be evident. This is a reason why this essay’s title includes the phrase ‘common good’.
Final Reflections: Common Good Liberalism, Pluralism and Flourishing
A key feature of Liberalism as a political theory is its commitment to -- as far as possible -- give people the freedom to live their lives and think their thoughts with as little coercion or guidance from the state as possible. That is to say, Liberalism is committed to an ethic of tolerance. (91)
Tolerance writ large in an open and democratic society results in -- or perhaps just is -- pluralism. A pluralistic society is not a melting pot: It’s more like a chunky stew. Though significant subsets of the citizenry (not only ethnic or racial but religious) may not constitute a majority or even a plurality sufficient to dominate the general culture, these groups -- their identities, values, norms, practices -- still count. They count not only in terms of their de facto influence but also just because they exist. (92)
Pluralism is distinguished from multiculturalism in that the former but not the latter presupposes a dominant culture. For a pluralistic democracy like the United States, that common culture is quite thin. Americans appear to share a commitment to basic rights, to the rule of law, to elections, to a basic agreement as to our history, to a basic willingness to live-and-let-live, to capitalism, and to consumerism. Yet our cultural and political “sortings” -- in terms of geography (rural versus urban versus suburban), educational attainment, type of work, media consumption, and basic outlook -- have polarized us such that our interpretations as to what even these minimal elements actually mean often differ substantially. (93)
It is my observation, nevertheless, that the idea of a common good -- of the common good -- is one that people broadly share. That is, most believe there is such a thing, want to seek it personally, and believe others should as well.
A question, then, is this: If welfare liberalism were to be framed in terms not of “handouts” or “redistribution” or even justice but instead as defining and operationalizing the common good, might that not go some way to creating consensus on -- or, at least, lessening resistance to -- some of the aims and hopes (as sketched above) set by Liberals, even in a society as pluralistic and polarized as ours?
To be clear, the common good is more than streetlights and bridges, important as those are. It reflects the myriad ways we are connected. It’s everything needed for a community to prosper. It is to think of a community not as a machine but as a living organism. It's to realize that what affects one affects us all. It's striving to make each person succeed so the entire community makes progress.
This leads us straightforwardly into a eudaimonistic conception of society, one that essentially supervenes upon eudaimonism for individuals. (‘Eudaimonia’ is from the Greek; it literally means “happiness,” though in its fullest sense it means “well-being, flourishing, thriving.”) (94)
Eudaimonism as a theory of ethics begins with a self-evident truth: People do, in fact, want to flourish, to be well, to be happy. That is, it is human nature to “seek a good life.” Determining the components of such a life “amounts to determining, relative to our desire for such a life, what ends we ought to pursue.” (95)
Eudaimonism is a humanistic doctrine. It straightforwardly assumes there is such a thing as human nature. Yet, it is also sufficiently flexible to accommodate the truth that how human nature manifests itself depends upon context and culture. It is realistic, both in acknowledging that humans are creatures driven by desire toward what we perceive is our good, and also in embracing a holism about what genuine flourishing for an individual involves. Its emphasis is on individuals as flesh and blood agents, rather than on abstract rules and principles.
The moral implications (i.e., what right action means) of eudaimonism come into focus around two aspects: the virtues and teleology. Nowadays, when used in an ethical context, ‘virtue’ means something like “character quality.” There are virtues like punctuality, thriftiness, honesty and so forth. However, the older sense -- coming from the Greeks -- had to do with excellence. (96) Thus, a master electrician exemplifies the excellences -- the virtues -- associated with the best that that trade can accomplish: e.g., the safe, efficient, wiring of a house.
Eudaimonism holds that genuine human flourishing requires not only that a person have her fundamental needs met (as in, for example, Abraham Maslow’s famous “Hierarchy of Needs”). (97) She must also exemplify key moral excellences. Being a virtuous person, in this way, is to be an excellent one and thus a flourishing one. Crucially, for a person to count (say) as just, justice must be integral to her basic outlook and pattern of behavior. Like an electrician who rarely makes a mistake in his work, a just person has a settled disposition to think and act in just ways. (98)
Again, this emphasis on virtues is humanistic. The moral agent -- her intentions, dispositions, and (ultimately) actions -- is first order; factoring her actions into a broader ethical scheme is second order. This way of “doing” ethics is known as virtue ethics. And while it is conceptually distinct from eudaimonism per se, it has an obvious and natural congruence with eudaimonism. (99)
Genuine eudaimonism is kept safe from false ethical visions in at least two ways. First, eudaimonia is, as we have seen, a much richer notion than merely “feeling happy.” The latter is what classical hedonism (ancient Epicureanism) takes “the good” to be. Second, essential virtues (e.g., justice) are intrinsically other-regarding. This prevents eudaimonism from collapsing into ethical egoism. (100)
What ties all this together is teleology -- in at least two ways. First, humans have natures. Honoring such is the key to flourishing and so to “the good.” Central to human nature is, as we have seen, the need to live in community with others. The virtues are what they are because human society and tradition have taught us that these are prerequisites to community and thus to our mutual thriving. (101)
Second, given that humans are creatures with stable natures, practical ethics within the context of modern society will have a strongly consequentialist shape. (102) Consequentialism here is not utilitarianism per se. A commitment to individual rights (as discussed above) provides the “deontological backstop” such that the individual won’t be swept up into a utilitarian “for the greater good” dystopia. (103)
Nevertheless, practical ethics -- that is to say, public policy -- must be crafted around what works, what gets results, what promotes the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people. Creativity and experimentation should be hallmarks. False “rights” -- for example, that people should be able to transfer their wealth untouched to their children -- should be rejected if the data warrant it.
My proposal, then, is that a thoughtful consequentialist approach -- that is, careful policymaking done along the lines of the welfare liberal’s aspirations -- will point to, identify, and reflect what is in fact the common good. The common good will be what promotes general flourishing, with a special focus on those most in need.
This is a long-winded way of saying something obvious: Good policymaking promotes general flourishing which increases the “commonweal” or “the general welfare” which just is the common good. Such policymaking -- that which honors the common good -- reflects the organic, interdependent nature of human communities. That is to say, it operates from an ecological mindset and not merely from a paradigm of costs and benefits. It acknowledges that what affects one affects all. It presses to make each person succeed so the entire community can make progress. (104)
My final point brings us back to Hunter’s claim that the primary impulse of a conservative is toward the right-ordering of society, while that of a liberal is toward justice within it. While this remains a reasonable and helpful framework, I should note that for a Liberal like myself, for a society to be rightly ordered just is for it to be organized in terms of the Common Good. (105)
This concludes the essay.
A key feature of Liberalism as a political theory is its commitment to -- as far as possible -- give people the freedom to live their lives and think their thoughts with as little coercion or guidance from the state as possible. That is to say, Liberalism is committed to an ethic of tolerance. (91)
Tolerance writ large in an open and democratic society results in -- or perhaps just is -- pluralism. A pluralistic society is not a melting pot: It’s more like a chunky stew. Though significant subsets of the citizenry (not only ethnic or racial but religious) may not constitute a majority or even a plurality sufficient to dominate the general culture, these groups -- their identities, values, norms, practices -- still count. They count not only in terms of their de facto influence but also just because they exist. (92)
Pluralism is distinguished from multiculturalism in that the former but not the latter presupposes a dominant culture. For a pluralistic democracy like the United States, that common culture is quite thin. Americans appear to share a commitment to basic rights, to the rule of law, to elections, to a basic agreement as to our history, to a basic willingness to live-and-let-live, to capitalism, and to consumerism. Yet our cultural and political “sortings” -- in terms of geography (rural versus urban versus suburban), educational attainment, type of work, media consumption, and basic outlook -- have polarized us such that our interpretations as to what even these minimal elements actually mean often differ substantially. (93)
It is my observation, nevertheless, that the idea of a common good -- of the common good -- is one that people broadly share. That is, most believe there is such a thing, want to seek it personally, and believe others should as well.
A question, then, is this: If welfare liberalism were to be framed in terms not of “handouts” or “redistribution” or even justice but instead as defining and operationalizing the common good, might that not go some way to creating consensus on -- or, at least, lessening resistance to -- some of the aims and hopes (as sketched above) set by Liberals, even in a society as pluralistic and polarized as ours?
To be clear, the common good is more than streetlights and bridges, important as those are. It reflects the myriad ways we are connected. It’s everything needed for a community to prosper. It is to think of a community not as a machine but as a living organism. It's to realize that what affects one affects us all. It's striving to make each person succeed so the entire community makes progress.
This leads us straightforwardly into a eudaimonistic conception of society, one that essentially supervenes upon eudaimonism for individuals. (‘Eudaimonia’ is from the Greek; it literally means “happiness,” though in its fullest sense it means “well-being, flourishing, thriving.”) (94)
Eudaimonism as a theory of ethics begins with a self-evident truth: People do, in fact, want to flourish, to be well, to be happy. That is, it is human nature to “seek a good life.” Determining the components of such a life “amounts to determining, relative to our desire for such a life, what ends we ought to pursue.” (95)
Eudaimonism is a humanistic doctrine. It straightforwardly assumes there is such a thing as human nature. Yet, it is also sufficiently flexible to accommodate the truth that how human nature manifests itself depends upon context and culture. It is realistic, both in acknowledging that humans are creatures driven by desire toward what we perceive is our good, and also in embracing a holism about what genuine flourishing for an individual involves. Its emphasis is on individuals as flesh and blood agents, rather than on abstract rules and principles.
The moral implications (i.e., what right action means) of eudaimonism come into focus around two aspects: the virtues and teleology. Nowadays, when used in an ethical context, ‘virtue’ means something like “character quality.” There are virtues like punctuality, thriftiness, honesty and so forth. However, the older sense -- coming from the Greeks -- had to do with excellence. (96) Thus, a master electrician exemplifies the excellences -- the virtues -- associated with the best that that trade can accomplish: e.g., the safe, efficient, wiring of a house.
Eudaimonism holds that genuine human flourishing requires not only that a person have her fundamental needs met (as in, for example, Abraham Maslow’s famous “Hierarchy of Needs”). (97) She must also exemplify key moral excellences. Being a virtuous person, in this way, is to be an excellent one and thus a flourishing one. Crucially, for a person to count (say) as just, justice must be integral to her basic outlook and pattern of behavior. Like an electrician who rarely makes a mistake in his work, a just person has a settled disposition to think and act in just ways. (98)
Again, this emphasis on virtues is humanistic. The moral agent -- her intentions, dispositions, and (ultimately) actions -- is first order; factoring her actions into a broader ethical scheme is second order. This way of “doing” ethics is known as virtue ethics. And while it is conceptually distinct from eudaimonism per se, it has an obvious and natural congruence with eudaimonism. (99)
Genuine eudaimonism is kept safe from false ethical visions in at least two ways. First, eudaimonia is, as we have seen, a much richer notion than merely “feeling happy.” The latter is what classical hedonism (ancient Epicureanism) takes “the good” to be. Second, essential virtues (e.g., justice) are intrinsically other-regarding. This prevents eudaimonism from collapsing into ethical egoism. (100)
What ties all this together is teleology -- in at least two ways. First, humans have natures. Honoring such is the key to flourishing and so to “the good.” Central to human nature is, as we have seen, the need to live in community with others. The virtues are what they are because human society and tradition have taught us that these are prerequisites to community and thus to our mutual thriving. (101)
Second, given that humans are creatures with stable natures, practical ethics within the context of modern society will have a strongly consequentialist shape. (102) Consequentialism here is not utilitarianism per se. A commitment to individual rights (as discussed above) provides the “deontological backstop” such that the individual won’t be swept up into a utilitarian “for the greater good” dystopia. (103)
Nevertheless, practical ethics -- that is to say, public policy -- must be crafted around what works, what gets results, what promotes the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people. Creativity and experimentation should be hallmarks. False “rights” -- for example, that people should be able to transfer their wealth untouched to their children -- should be rejected if the data warrant it.
My proposal, then, is that a thoughtful consequentialist approach -- that is, careful policymaking done along the lines of the welfare liberal’s aspirations -- will point to, identify, and reflect what is in fact the common good. The common good will be what promotes general flourishing, with a special focus on those most in need.
This is a long-winded way of saying something obvious: Good policymaking promotes general flourishing which increases the “commonweal” or “the general welfare” which just is the common good. Such policymaking -- that which honors the common good -- reflects the organic, interdependent nature of human communities. That is to say, it operates from an ecological mindset and not merely from a paradigm of costs and benefits. It acknowledges that what affects one affects all. It presses to make each person succeed so the entire community can make progress. (104)
My final point brings us back to Hunter’s claim that the primary impulse of a conservative is toward the right-ordering of society, while that of a liberal is toward justice within it. While this remains a reasonable and helpful framework, I should note that for a Liberal like myself, for a society to be rightly ordered just is for it to be organized in terms of the Common Good. (105)
This concludes the essay.
Footnotes:
(75) All the more lamentable that the Right has mostly given up on policy-making per se. The GOP didn’t even bother to adopt a formal platform for their 2020 presidential convention. Instead, it simply endorsed a cult of personality.
(76) There are many great resources on this topic, as a simple web search will reveal. A wonderful example of a policy that’s actually improved equity is the Americans with Disabilities Act. Features of the built environment -- e.g., door handles, bathrooms fixtures, wheelchair ramps, parking spaces -- which must be thoughtfully attended to create physical equity can serve as analogies to other sorts of equity.
For example, if one were to put the question of equity for an African American into physical terms, not only would (say) the door (now, in the present) not have the appropriate handle or be at the necessary width. But in their and their forebears' (past) journey up to the door, there would have been all manner of barriers intentionally and maliciously thrown up in their path. This is as good a picture of what historic and (consequently) systemic racism means as I know.
(77) As Dylan Matthews argues in Vox in his excellent piece, “The case against equality of opportunity” (September 21, 2015). (https://www.vox.com/2015/9/21/9334215/equality-of-opportunity)
(77A) I owe this point to my friend Philip Spradlin.
(78) The statement is by Jesus of Nazareth in Matthew 26:11. To claim, as many conservative Christians do, that Jesus intended this to state an immutable economic fact goes far beyond what the text can support. Moreover, the New Testament -- including the Gospels -- says quite a lot in fact about helping the poor.
(79) “Moral hazard” is “lack of incentive to guard against risk where one is protected from its consequences, e.g. by insurance.” (Google Dictionary) Again, it is remarkable how quickly the propertied classes lose their scruples about state aid when it is they who need it. As a great example of how well-crafted policy can lift the truly poor, consider the “conditional cash transfer” scheme of the Bolsa Família program in Brazil. (https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/bolsa-familia-in-brazil/)
(80) I could provide a fifth heading about how the welfare liberal / welfare liberalism operates: Welfare liberalism has great flexibility as to how it might be implemented. It is non-ideological insofar as it is not beholden to the false totems of radical libertarianism on the one side or socialism on the other. It is, in this way, centrist, moderate, pragmatic, and data-driven. The welfare liberal realizes that there are ditches on either side of the road and that both are to be avoided. She rejects the false hope of “revolution” and is content with a dogged incrementalism. She sees that there are no always-and-forever or one-size-fits-all answers in terms of policy responses to particular societal needs. She is constantly balancing risks: an inadequate social safety net on the one hand versus over-dependency on the state on the other; mitigation of life’s contingencies versus moral hazard; wealth inequality versus growth in national income; the sin of greed versus that of sloth; and so on. She realizes that governance is hard work; that there are no easy answers; that wise policy requires careful thought.
(81) These goals may be found here: https://sdgs.un.org/goals
(82) The data now show, quite manifestly, that American is no longer the mythic place where a person can pull himself by his bootstraps and rise to the top of the heap. Income and wealth inequality are at their highest in decades; the amount held by the top 0.1% of the population compared to the lowest deciles is quite shocking. (See the various books by the economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz for the details here.) Beyond the questions of whether such distortions are just (they’re not) or good for growing everyone’s piece of the pie (they’re not) or of whether these rich folk need less taxes (they don’t), the fact is that a child born in the lower deciles has vastly diminished opportunities for a good life than those of a child born in the upper deciles. This is a moral catastrophe to which the failed libertarian policy of “trickle-down economics” cannot speak.
(83) There are many excellent resources on Catholic Social Teaching. A thorough-yet-accessible introduction is The Common Good and the Catholic Church’s Social Teaching: A statement by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (1996). It may be accessed here: http://www.catholicsocialteaching.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/THE-COMMON-GOOD-AND-THE-CATHOLIC-CHURCH_1996.pdf My unpacking of key themes largely draws from this document. (Incidentally, I am not Catholic.)
(84) The Common Good and The Catholic Church’s Social Teaching, 9.
(85) Ibid., 10.
(86) Ibid.
(87) Ibid., 11.
(88) Ibid.
(89) Ibid.
(90) Ibid., 19. The critique the authors make relative to wealth inequality and to (something like) “trickle-down” economics are incisive.
(91) Political Conservatives take great delight in pointing out the hypocrisy of Liberals who are intolerant in their enforcement of “political correctness” and “speech codes.” They even have a clever move of turning the virtue of tolerance on its head: “You Liberals are supposedly all about ‘tolerance’ as long as it suits. As soon as someone is ‘intolerant’ about something -- by, say, having a conservative view on gay marriage or abortion -- you become quite ‘intolerant of their intolerance.’ Hypocrite!” This is silly: Liberals aren’t making tolerance an ultimate ethical standard, an end in itself. They are arguing for a general mindset -- a prima facie starting point -- that peoples’ freedoms, life choices, and ideas should be permitted unless some overriding reason counters. Parents do this all the time with children: “You all have broad freedom to play, to have fun, to romp even. But as soon as I hear you arguing amongst yourselves, the game is up!”
As to those who advocate for speech codes and political correctness as ends in themselves, they are not genuine Liberals. That said, it is my observation that many who argue for such codes and correctnesses are trying to put tangible parameters in place to prevent real harm. It is also my observation that those loudest in their opposition against them are either insensitive to how words and behavior may hurt or simply want to thumb their nose at anyone telling them how to act. Love has to find a way to work through these things. Operating from a place of tolerance is a good default.
(92) For all the terror, for example, evangelical Christians have that a secular, pluralistic government will take away their “religious liberty,” (read: the ability to say and do as they will while keeping their tax exempt status) a society genuinely committed to pluralism would happily admit such a group as one among many. The rub of course is that each such group must peacefully coexist with all others.
(93) An example is the most recent Presidential election in which tens of millions of Conservative voters believe they were cheated. The issue is not only the lies and propaganda from politicians and media. Many people of a conservative bent simply do not trust any form of voting other than in person -- hence their paranoia over voter fraud.
For the notion of sorting, see the book by Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart.
(94) It’s worth providing some background here, drawing from other things I’ve written as well as from “ethics” in the CDP:
Ethics is the philosophical study of morality. The two most fundamental elements of ethics are these: An investigation of goodness. That is, what ends ought we to pursue? What does a good life involve? What kinds of things are intrinsically good? An investigation of right action. That is, what principles of right and wrong should govern our actions? What are our duties to one another?
Eudaimonism -- also called the theory of well-being -- is one answer to the first investigation: “The good” for me lies in pursuing a life of flourishing (where what is meant by “flourishing” requires additional enunciation but must be congruent with human nature). The other kind of answer are theories of intrinsic value: Some things (be they Platonic forms or beauty or the Holy Trinity) are intrinsically good and thus are ends in themselves. Note that one can be a eudaimonist and still believe some things are intrinsically good and are worth pursuing in themselves. It’s just that such pursuit(s) will be a component part of a larger life, the integrated whole of which will be aimed at well-being.
Eudaimonism can take one of two forms: “The good” can be taken to be pleasure, which doesn’t have to be sensate. Feelings or a state of contentment, peace, or satisfaction might serve instead. This is the classical hedonism exemplified by Epicurus. Alternately -- and this is the view I take -- “the good” can be understood in terms of the excellences that a human can possess -- in particular the virtues but also a thriving life in itself. This is known as perfectionism; it’s most famous exponent was Aristotle.
As I explain in the body, what right action entails on a eudaimonistic conception of “the good” must involve both the virtues and teleology. Right action is that guided by the virtues and toward goals consistent with human flourishing, both for myself and my community.
(95) The quotations in this paragraph are from “ethics” in the CDP.
(96) The SEP’s entry “Ancient Ethical Theory” explains thusly: “Virtue is a general term that translates the Greek word aretê. Sometimes aretê is also translated as excellence. Many objects, natural or artificial, have their particular aretê or kind of excellence. There is the excellence of a horse and the excellence of a knife. Then, of course, there is human excellence. Conceptions of human excellence include such disparate figures as the Homeric warrior chieftain and the Athenian statesman of the period of its imperial expansion...” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/)
(97) I’m not arguing or assuming that Maslow’s theory is correct. It’s just a simple and well-known paradigm for understanding human needs. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs)
(98) “A virtue is a settled disposition to act in a certain way; justice, for instance, is the settled disposition to act ... so that each one receives their due. This settled disposition includes a practical knowledge about how to bring it about, in each situation, that each receives their due. It also includes a strong positive attitude toward bringing it about that each receives their due. Just people, then, are not ones who occasionally act justly, or even who regularly act justly but do so out of some other motive; rather they are people who reliably act that way because they place a positive, high intrinsic value on rendering to each their due and they are good at it.” (SEP, “Ancient Ethical Theory.”)
There were four so-called cardinal virtues in the ancient world: prudence (wisdom), moderation (temperance), courage, and justice. The entry “Cardinal Virtues” in Wikipedia is good. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues)
(99) See “virtue ethics” in the CDP. Some relevant text: “[A]lso called virtue-based ethics and agent-based ethics, conceptions or theories of morality in which virtues play a central or independent role...
“Forms of virtue ethics predominated in Western philosophy before the Renaissance, most notably in Aristotle, but also in Plato and Aquinas. Several ancient and medieval philosophers endorsed strong versions of virtue ethics. These views focused on character rather than on discrete behavior, identifying illicit behavior with vicious behavior, i.e. conduct that would be seriously out of character for a virtuous person. A virtuous person, in turn, was defined as one with dispositions relevantly linked to human flourishing. On these views, while a person of good character, or someone who carefully observes her, may be able to articulate certain principles or rules by which she guides her conduct (or to which, at least, it outwardly conforms), the principles are not an ultimate source of moral justification. On the contrary, they are justified only insofar as the conduct they endorse would be in character for a virtuous person.
“For Aristotle, the connection between flourishing and virtue seems conceptual. (He conceived moral virtues as dispositions to choose under the proper guidance of reason, and defined a flourishing life as one lived in accordance with these virtues.)
“For the philosophers of ancient Greece, it was human nature, usually conceived teleologically, that fixed the content of this flourishing. Medieval Christian writers reinterpreted this, stipulating both that the flourishing life to which the virtues lead extends past death and that human flourishing is not merely the fulfillment of capacities and tendencies inherent in human nature, but is the realization of a divine plan. In late twentieth-century versions of virtue ethics, some theorists have suggested that it is neither to a teleology inherent in human nature nor to the divine will that we should look in determining the content of that flourishing to which the virtues lead. They understand flourishing more as a matter of a person’s living a life that meets the standards of her cultural, historical tradition.
“In his most general characterization, Aristotle called a thing’s virtues those features of it that made it and its operation good. The moral virtues were what made people live well. This use of ‘making’ is ambiguous. Where he and other premodern thinkers considered the connection between virtues and living well to be conceptual, moral theorists of the modernist era have usually understood it causally...
(100) Eudaimonism is, however, straightforwardly psychologically egoistic. That is, it acknowledges that it is human nature to seek one’s own good.
(101) A key issue in the justification of virtue-theoretic approaches is how to “ground” the virtues. It would seem that a vicious circle threatens: According to VE, we know that a person is (say) just -- that is, exemplifies that virtue -- because they consistently act in ways that are just. But how do we know that the actions in question are actually just? According to VE, because they are done by a just person. Presto! -- a vicious circle.
One way out of the circle is to treat the moral property which is justice as exemplified in both just persons and just actions and to link these two conceptually as two sides of the same coin: justice as the settled disposition to act, justice as actions themselves. What justice qua moral property is, is grounded by way of ostensive definition, that is, by pointing to persons and actions that satisfy a community or tradition’s notion of justice.
This way of grounding ethical properties and thence virtues and actions certainly lacks the theoretical elegance of discovering the Platonic form of “true justice” or of discovering a completely universal idea of the same. But it seems both a realistic description as to how the virtues actually reveal themselves, i.e., in the context of community, by iterative discovery, and through moral education, and also appropriately “naturalistic.” By the latter I don’t intend something like “metaphysical naturalism” or some other view that banishes God or transcendent value from the Universe. I mean that, given that humans are creatures with natures, it is reasonable to suppose that through both human and communal evolution and development genuine moral discovery and progress have taken place. (Indeed, that’s largely what it means to have been civilized.)
This does not entail a flabby relativism. The entire process is grounded in human nature and its development within human society. Assuming that God exists, His creative acts and providential purposes further buttress the objectivity of this. Moreover, debate, dialectic, argument, logic -- all of these sharpen and mold moral belief.
This is obviously the barest of sketches as to how the virtues and morality itself might be grounded. Significant conceptual issues arise when trying to acknowledge rival traditions of morality, both of which “work” on their own terms and yet which are seemingly incommensurate: for example, the more individualistic ethics of the Western tradition versus the more collectivist approach of Asian cultures.
(See the works by Alasdair MacIntyre on this score. MacIntyre is perhaps the most influential virtue ethicist of our time. His many books -- especially the classic After Virtue -- constitute a prolonged exploration of the virtues and of ethics more generally.)
(102) See “consequentialism” and “utilitarianism” in the CDP.
(103) I’m referring here to J.K. Rowling’s critique of what I take to be utilitarian-type thinking in the Harry Potter books, i.e., that trampling on the rights of Muggles by the Wizarding World is justified if some “greater good” might result.
Deontology is the study of duty and obligation. More specifically, deontological ethics has to do with duties and obligations that just are such, due to some governing principle or rule, and regardless of means and ends. So deontological schemes -- for example, divine command theories posit some dictates that “just are;” there’s nothing more to be said, because the authority lies in God; or theories like Kant’s, which claim that some dictates (e.g., I should never tell a lie) are binding just in virtue of the logical form such statements take -- are contrasted with teleological / consequentialist schemes such as utilitarianism.
In the latter, an action is justified if the end result of the action is a net increase in the “utility” or “happiness” of everyone involved, even if the action itself would be considered immoral along deontological lights. So, lying to an assassin about someone’s location is justified because the net result is a greater “utility” for everyone involved (especially the target).
(104) The Thriving Cities Group has done good, practical work in fleshing these ideas out. My thinking here has been informed by it. (See: www.thrivingcitiesgroup.com)
(105) I owe this point to my friend Declan Murphy.
Images:
"Bridge." Image by Siggy Nowak from Pixabay.
https://pixabay.com/photos/bridge-morlaix-bretague-brittany-1087035/
"York Minster Cathedral." Image by F. E. Greene from Pixabay.
https://pixabay.com/photos/yorkminster-york-england-yorkshire-2797690/
"Original proposed design for the Great Seal of the United States." By Pierre Eugene du Simitiere.
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7948286
Original 1/1/21. Final section added 7/4/21.
(75) All the more lamentable that the Right has mostly given up on policy-making per se. The GOP didn’t even bother to adopt a formal platform for their 2020 presidential convention. Instead, it simply endorsed a cult of personality.
(76) There are many great resources on this topic, as a simple web search will reveal. A wonderful example of a policy that’s actually improved equity is the Americans with Disabilities Act. Features of the built environment -- e.g., door handles, bathrooms fixtures, wheelchair ramps, parking spaces -- which must be thoughtfully attended to create physical equity can serve as analogies to other sorts of equity.
For example, if one were to put the question of equity for an African American into physical terms, not only would (say) the door (now, in the present) not have the appropriate handle or be at the necessary width. But in their and their forebears' (past) journey up to the door, there would have been all manner of barriers intentionally and maliciously thrown up in their path. This is as good a picture of what historic and (consequently) systemic racism means as I know.
(77) As Dylan Matthews argues in Vox in his excellent piece, “The case against equality of opportunity” (September 21, 2015). (https://www.vox.com/2015/9/21/9334215/equality-of-opportunity)
(77A) I owe this point to my friend Philip Spradlin.
(78) The statement is by Jesus of Nazareth in Matthew 26:11. To claim, as many conservative Christians do, that Jesus intended this to state an immutable economic fact goes far beyond what the text can support. Moreover, the New Testament -- including the Gospels -- says quite a lot in fact about helping the poor.
(79) “Moral hazard” is “lack of incentive to guard against risk where one is protected from its consequences, e.g. by insurance.” (Google Dictionary) Again, it is remarkable how quickly the propertied classes lose their scruples about state aid when it is they who need it. As a great example of how well-crafted policy can lift the truly poor, consider the “conditional cash transfer” scheme of the Bolsa Família program in Brazil. (https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/bolsa-familia-in-brazil/)
(80) I could provide a fifth heading about how the welfare liberal / welfare liberalism operates: Welfare liberalism has great flexibility as to how it might be implemented. It is non-ideological insofar as it is not beholden to the false totems of radical libertarianism on the one side or socialism on the other. It is, in this way, centrist, moderate, pragmatic, and data-driven. The welfare liberal realizes that there are ditches on either side of the road and that both are to be avoided. She rejects the false hope of “revolution” and is content with a dogged incrementalism. She sees that there are no always-and-forever or one-size-fits-all answers in terms of policy responses to particular societal needs. She is constantly balancing risks: an inadequate social safety net on the one hand versus over-dependency on the state on the other; mitigation of life’s contingencies versus moral hazard; wealth inequality versus growth in national income; the sin of greed versus that of sloth; and so on. She realizes that governance is hard work; that there are no easy answers; that wise policy requires careful thought.
(81) These goals may be found here: https://sdgs.un.org/goals
(82) The data now show, quite manifestly, that American is no longer the mythic place where a person can pull himself by his bootstraps and rise to the top of the heap. Income and wealth inequality are at their highest in decades; the amount held by the top 0.1% of the population compared to the lowest deciles is quite shocking. (See the various books by the economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz for the details here.) Beyond the questions of whether such distortions are just (they’re not) or good for growing everyone’s piece of the pie (they’re not) or of whether these rich folk need less taxes (they don’t), the fact is that a child born in the lower deciles has vastly diminished opportunities for a good life than those of a child born in the upper deciles. This is a moral catastrophe to which the failed libertarian policy of “trickle-down economics” cannot speak.
(83) There are many excellent resources on Catholic Social Teaching. A thorough-yet-accessible introduction is The Common Good and the Catholic Church’s Social Teaching: A statement by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (1996). It may be accessed here: http://www.catholicsocialteaching.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/THE-COMMON-GOOD-AND-THE-CATHOLIC-CHURCH_1996.pdf My unpacking of key themes largely draws from this document. (Incidentally, I am not Catholic.)
(84) The Common Good and The Catholic Church’s Social Teaching, 9.
(85) Ibid., 10.
(86) Ibid.
(87) Ibid., 11.
(88) Ibid.
(89) Ibid.
(90) Ibid., 19. The critique the authors make relative to wealth inequality and to (something like) “trickle-down” economics are incisive.
(91) Political Conservatives take great delight in pointing out the hypocrisy of Liberals who are intolerant in their enforcement of “political correctness” and “speech codes.” They even have a clever move of turning the virtue of tolerance on its head: “You Liberals are supposedly all about ‘tolerance’ as long as it suits. As soon as someone is ‘intolerant’ about something -- by, say, having a conservative view on gay marriage or abortion -- you become quite ‘intolerant of their intolerance.’ Hypocrite!” This is silly: Liberals aren’t making tolerance an ultimate ethical standard, an end in itself. They are arguing for a general mindset -- a prima facie starting point -- that peoples’ freedoms, life choices, and ideas should be permitted unless some overriding reason counters. Parents do this all the time with children: “You all have broad freedom to play, to have fun, to romp even. But as soon as I hear you arguing amongst yourselves, the game is up!”
As to those who advocate for speech codes and political correctness as ends in themselves, they are not genuine Liberals. That said, it is my observation that many who argue for such codes and correctnesses are trying to put tangible parameters in place to prevent real harm. It is also my observation that those loudest in their opposition against them are either insensitive to how words and behavior may hurt or simply want to thumb their nose at anyone telling them how to act. Love has to find a way to work through these things. Operating from a place of tolerance is a good default.
(92) For all the terror, for example, evangelical Christians have that a secular, pluralistic government will take away their “religious liberty,” (read: the ability to say and do as they will while keeping their tax exempt status) a society genuinely committed to pluralism would happily admit such a group as one among many. The rub of course is that each such group must peacefully coexist with all others.
(93) An example is the most recent Presidential election in which tens of millions of Conservative voters believe they were cheated. The issue is not only the lies and propaganda from politicians and media. Many people of a conservative bent simply do not trust any form of voting other than in person -- hence their paranoia over voter fraud.
For the notion of sorting, see the book by Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart.
(94) It’s worth providing some background here, drawing from other things I’ve written as well as from “ethics” in the CDP:
Ethics is the philosophical study of morality. The two most fundamental elements of ethics are these: An investigation of goodness. That is, what ends ought we to pursue? What does a good life involve? What kinds of things are intrinsically good? An investigation of right action. That is, what principles of right and wrong should govern our actions? What are our duties to one another?
Eudaimonism -- also called the theory of well-being -- is one answer to the first investigation: “The good” for me lies in pursuing a life of flourishing (where what is meant by “flourishing” requires additional enunciation but must be congruent with human nature). The other kind of answer are theories of intrinsic value: Some things (be they Platonic forms or beauty or the Holy Trinity) are intrinsically good and thus are ends in themselves. Note that one can be a eudaimonist and still believe some things are intrinsically good and are worth pursuing in themselves. It’s just that such pursuit(s) will be a component part of a larger life, the integrated whole of which will be aimed at well-being.
Eudaimonism can take one of two forms: “The good” can be taken to be pleasure, which doesn’t have to be sensate. Feelings or a state of contentment, peace, or satisfaction might serve instead. This is the classical hedonism exemplified by Epicurus. Alternately -- and this is the view I take -- “the good” can be understood in terms of the excellences that a human can possess -- in particular the virtues but also a thriving life in itself. This is known as perfectionism; it’s most famous exponent was Aristotle.
As I explain in the body, what right action entails on a eudaimonistic conception of “the good” must involve both the virtues and teleology. Right action is that guided by the virtues and toward goals consistent with human flourishing, both for myself and my community.
(95) The quotations in this paragraph are from “ethics” in the CDP.
(96) The SEP’s entry “Ancient Ethical Theory” explains thusly: “Virtue is a general term that translates the Greek word aretê. Sometimes aretê is also translated as excellence. Many objects, natural or artificial, have their particular aretê or kind of excellence. There is the excellence of a horse and the excellence of a knife. Then, of course, there is human excellence. Conceptions of human excellence include such disparate figures as the Homeric warrior chieftain and the Athenian statesman of the period of its imperial expansion...” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/)
(97) I’m not arguing or assuming that Maslow’s theory is correct. It’s just a simple and well-known paradigm for understanding human needs. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs)
(98) “A virtue is a settled disposition to act in a certain way; justice, for instance, is the settled disposition to act ... so that each one receives their due. This settled disposition includes a practical knowledge about how to bring it about, in each situation, that each receives their due. It also includes a strong positive attitude toward bringing it about that each receives their due. Just people, then, are not ones who occasionally act justly, or even who regularly act justly but do so out of some other motive; rather they are people who reliably act that way because they place a positive, high intrinsic value on rendering to each their due and they are good at it.” (SEP, “Ancient Ethical Theory.”)
There were four so-called cardinal virtues in the ancient world: prudence (wisdom), moderation (temperance), courage, and justice. The entry “Cardinal Virtues” in Wikipedia is good. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues)
(99) See “virtue ethics” in the CDP. Some relevant text: “[A]lso called virtue-based ethics and agent-based ethics, conceptions or theories of morality in which virtues play a central or independent role...
“Forms of virtue ethics predominated in Western philosophy before the Renaissance, most notably in Aristotle, but also in Plato and Aquinas. Several ancient and medieval philosophers endorsed strong versions of virtue ethics. These views focused on character rather than on discrete behavior, identifying illicit behavior with vicious behavior, i.e. conduct that would be seriously out of character for a virtuous person. A virtuous person, in turn, was defined as one with dispositions relevantly linked to human flourishing. On these views, while a person of good character, or someone who carefully observes her, may be able to articulate certain principles or rules by which she guides her conduct (or to which, at least, it outwardly conforms), the principles are not an ultimate source of moral justification. On the contrary, they are justified only insofar as the conduct they endorse would be in character for a virtuous person.
“For Aristotle, the connection between flourishing and virtue seems conceptual. (He conceived moral virtues as dispositions to choose under the proper guidance of reason, and defined a flourishing life as one lived in accordance with these virtues.)
“For the philosophers of ancient Greece, it was human nature, usually conceived teleologically, that fixed the content of this flourishing. Medieval Christian writers reinterpreted this, stipulating both that the flourishing life to which the virtues lead extends past death and that human flourishing is not merely the fulfillment of capacities and tendencies inherent in human nature, but is the realization of a divine plan. In late twentieth-century versions of virtue ethics, some theorists have suggested that it is neither to a teleology inherent in human nature nor to the divine will that we should look in determining the content of that flourishing to which the virtues lead. They understand flourishing more as a matter of a person’s living a life that meets the standards of her cultural, historical tradition.
“In his most general characterization, Aristotle called a thing’s virtues those features of it that made it and its operation good. The moral virtues were what made people live well. This use of ‘making’ is ambiguous. Where he and other premodern thinkers considered the connection between virtues and living well to be conceptual, moral theorists of the modernist era have usually understood it causally...
(100) Eudaimonism is, however, straightforwardly psychologically egoistic. That is, it acknowledges that it is human nature to seek one’s own good.
(101) A key issue in the justification of virtue-theoretic approaches is how to “ground” the virtues. It would seem that a vicious circle threatens: According to VE, we know that a person is (say) just -- that is, exemplifies that virtue -- because they consistently act in ways that are just. But how do we know that the actions in question are actually just? According to VE, because they are done by a just person. Presto! -- a vicious circle.
One way out of the circle is to treat the moral property which is justice as exemplified in both just persons and just actions and to link these two conceptually as two sides of the same coin: justice as the settled disposition to act, justice as actions themselves. What justice qua moral property is, is grounded by way of ostensive definition, that is, by pointing to persons and actions that satisfy a community or tradition’s notion of justice.
This way of grounding ethical properties and thence virtues and actions certainly lacks the theoretical elegance of discovering the Platonic form of “true justice” or of discovering a completely universal idea of the same. But it seems both a realistic description as to how the virtues actually reveal themselves, i.e., in the context of community, by iterative discovery, and through moral education, and also appropriately “naturalistic.” By the latter I don’t intend something like “metaphysical naturalism” or some other view that banishes God or transcendent value from the Universe. I mean that, given that humans are creatures with natures, it is reasonable to suppose that through both human and communal evolution and development genuine moral discovery and progress have taken place. (Indeed, that’s largely what it means to have been civilized.)
This does not entail a flabby relativism. The entire process is grounded in human nature and its development within human society. Assuming that God exists, His creative acts and providential purposes further buttress the objectivity of this. Moreover, debate, dialectic, argument, logic -- all of these sharpen and mold moral belief.
This is obviously the barest of sketches as to how the virtues and morality itself might be grounded. Significant conceptual issues arise when trying to acknowledge rival traditions of morality, both of which “work” on their own terms and yet which are seemingly incommensurate: for example, the more individualistic ethics of the Western tradition versus the more collectivist approach of Asian cultures.
(See the works by Alasdair MacIntyre on this score. MacIntyre is perhaps the most influential virtue ethicist of our time. His many books -- especially the classic After Virtue -- constitute a prolonged exploration of the virtues and of ethics more generally.)
(102) See “consequentialism” and “utilitarianism” in the CDP.
(103) I’m referring here to J.K. Rowling’s critique of what I take to be utilitarian-type thinking in the Harry Potter books, i.e., that trampling on the rights of Muggles by the Wizarding World is justified if some “greater good” might result.
Deontology is the study of duty and obligation. More specifically, deontological ethics has to do with duties and obligations that just are such, due to some governing principle or rule, and regardless of means and ends. So deontological schemes -- for example, divine command theories posit some dictates that “just are;” there’s nothing more to be said, because the authority lies in God; or theories like Kant’s, which claim that some dictates (e.g., I should never tell a lie) are binding just in virtue of the logical form such statements take -- are contrasted with teleological / consequentialist schemes such as utilitarianism.
In the latter, an action is justified if the end result of the action is a net increase in the “utility” or “happiness” of everyone involved, even if the action itself would be considered immoral along deontological lights. So, lying to an assassin about someone’s location is justified because the net result is a greater “utility” for everyone involved (especially the target).
(104) The Thriving Cities Group has done good, practical work in fleshing these ideas out. My thinking here has been informed by it. (See: www.thrivingcitiesgroup.com)
(105) I owe this point to my friend Declan Murphy.
Images:
"Bridge." Image by Siggy Nowak from Pixabay.
https://pixabay.com/photos/bridge-morlaix-bretague-brittany-1087035/
"York Minster Cathedral." Image by F. E. Greene from Pixabay.
https://pixabay.com/photos/yorkminster-york-england-yorkshire-2797690/
"Original proposed design for the Great Seal of the United States." By Pierre Eugene du Simitiere.
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7948286
Original 1/1/21. Final section added 7/4/21.