Values or Goods?

Means to End, End to Means

Time to reconsider God as end in respect of the relationship of the common good to the ultimate end?

From The End of Modernity by Thaddeus Kozinski:

According to St. Thomas, men cannot adequately understand in theory, let alone fulfill in practice, the detailed precepts of the natural law without the help of its author, God, and its divinely appointed interpreter, the Roman Catholic Church. With regard to a non-sacral foundation for political order, the Thomist Joseph May in the 1950s stated: “The only true doctrine is that civil society cannot prescind from the ultimate end [emphasis mine] both because the temporal welfare implies an ordering to the spiritual and supernatural, and because the individual citizens are directly and positively bound to tend to it.”[8] And even Dignitatis Humanae insists that it “leaves untouched the traditional Catholic doctrine about the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ” (Sec. 1). As Pope John Paul II often reiterated, the face of Jesus Christ is the only true mirror in which man can fully and accurately contemplate and comprehend his own nature and destiny; thus, only therein can he discern the moral values and goods most perfective of himself and the political order.

Fr. David gave a presentation on St. Maximus the Confessor - I definitely will need to read more, especially his use of "nature." For now it would have to be his writings in English translation. I should improve my Greek! Is there a study of his appropriation (and rejection) of Aristotle's teachings?

James Chastek, Integral truth

Mr. Chastek compares theological truth with food and relates both to multiple ends. G-L is making a point though about the epistemology of those supporting the development of a new, up-to-date theology. If theology is not true, then how can it benefit or aid modern man and his vexations? Do we know God via things? Or do we know God through our ideas?

We could also ask the question of whether theology is more speculative or practical in nature.

Grisez on the Good of Religion

My Finnis books are not handy, so I will use Germain Grisez's treatment of religion* as a reference for the New Natural Law Theory:

[1] "We experience sin and alienation from God; the goods are the peace and friendship with God which are the concern of all true religion."

[2] "Religion is a great blessing, for nothing in life is more important than liberation from sin and friendship with God. However, harmony with God should not be confused with God himself nor with the divine life in which Christians share by adoption. The human good of religion—that harmony with God which perfects human persons as human—is only one human good alongside others (see GS 11). St. Thomas Aquinas makes this point by distinguishing the virtue of religion from the theological virtues. The former, concerned with specifically religious acts, such as prayer and sacrifice, does not bear upon God himself as the latter do (cf. S.t., 2–2, q. 81, a. 5)."

[3] Finally, in his summary of the seven basic categories of human goods Grisez writes:
"(4) religion or holiness, which is harmony with God, found in the agreement of human individual and communal free choices with God’s will."

Friendship with God is charity, and should not be confused with the virtue of religion. It is not clear to me that Grisez does not muddle the two in [1], as he says that peace and friendshipw ith God are the concern of all true religion. In [2] the differentiation is clearer.

In his discussion of religion and its act, devotion, Aquinas seems to be saying that there cannot be the virtue of religion without charity, since religion is concerned with the means to the end which is the object of charity, God Himself. In the response to the first objection, he says:

The power or virtue whose action deals with an end, moves by its command the power or virtue whose action deals with matters directed to that end. Now the theological virtues, faith, hope and charity have an act in reference to God as their proper object: wherefore, by their command, they cause the act of religion, which performs certain deeds directed to God: and so Augustine says that God is worshiped by faith, hope and charity.

Can one will something to God as an end without first loving Him? Can there be the act of religion without the virtue of charity? It seems not: charity is the proximate cause of devotion [religion]. How can someone will something as a means to an end without his will first being referred to the end? Without willing the end, how can the means be a means?

Is religion, then an infused virtue, and not an acquired one? It is apparent that there must be an infused virtue of religion that corresponds to the theological virtue of charity.** But is there a natural, acquired virtue of religion matching the natural love of God? Here we enter into the thicket of controversy: the relationship between the natural order and the supernatural order and the consequences of the Fall and effects of original sin.

I tend to think that there is not an acquired virtue of religion after people attain the use of reason. Either they accept God's grace or they do not.

Germain is clearly doing moral theology in his books. But if he follows Aquinas (or this understanding of Aquinas) and implicitly admits in his account of natural law that religion is thus tied to charity, then its usefulness ends. What is needed for non-believers beyond this point, as I said earlier, is not more discourse about the precepts of the natural law, but grace and Christ.

I should compare this with what Finnis writes about the good of religion...

I note that a special issue of the American Journal of Jurisprudence was devoted to Grisez on the question of human fulfillment, and iirc, some of the contributions examined his treatment of religion.


On religion as "belief system" or "worldview":
In a comment to a previous post from today JBS gives a definition of religion:

Religion - that set of rules by which I know I'm ok...and you're not.

This definition allows for many belief-systems not normally thought-of as 'religious' to function, allowing for everyone to have a religion, apart from a real relationship with God.

It seems that here religion is synonymous with belief system or world view. Everyone has a belief system or worldview, which is a mixture of knowledge and set of beliefs about reality. But it is not the same as religion as it is defined by Grisez or Aquinas. People act in accordance with certain first principles, but these first principles may not include God.

What about the pagans and their beliefs and attitudes? Is God or are the gods superior to us? Hence we must give them the proper respect and may even need to placate their anger. Or are they merely used by us? That is, they are servants of our happiness. Whom must we please? Ourselves or the gods?

If the virtue of religion is tied to the love of God, then what motivates those who do not love God but are "imperfect" to perform certain acts of religion? The fear of punishment or the promise of reward (or a certain good of reason), which can be harmonized with the love of self. One does not need the love of God to fear punishment, etc. Similarly, non-Christians do not need charity in order to perform the rituals that they have learned from their elders. Just because certain acts associated with a virtue are being done does not imply that this virtue is present in the agent.

We can use Aquinas's treatment of the Old Law as a model for understanding non-Christian religions*** before the coming of Christ and relate their proximity to the truth through the supposition of a Primitive Revelation. See Journet's The Meaning of Grace for his account of grace before the Incarnation and "God in Search of Man" by Patrick Beeman for more about Wilhelm Schmidt.

John Finnis on the Good of Marriage

Marriage: A Basic and Exigent Good (via Mirror of Justice)

I have something in the works on the difference between "traditional" Thomistic moral theology/philosophy and the New Natural Theology regarding human goods. I maintain that in the former, the good to which we aim or which we intend is understood [primarily or exclusively] as an activity (or action), while it is understood within the NNLT as some sort of state or quasi-habit. This has an impact on the question of whether there is a single good which constitutes human happiness (and how various goods are integrated).

One could ask whether a model of practical reason is descriptive or normative. Some features of human practical reasoning are universal -- means-ends, the relationship of human desire to a (perceived) good (even if this is denied in a particular moral theory), the nature of practical reason as being focused on human action. Some aspects are present only to those educated (or raised) within a specific tradition.

Who’s Afraid of Metaphysics? by Matthew O'Brien and Robert C. Koons (the third of their 3-part series on natural law - parts one and two) [via ML]

Happiness Surveys and the Good of Ethics

We have often received reports through the MSM of the results of surveys trying to find the world's happiest country, and so on.

The most recent item I've seen that makes use of such surveys is Jim Bannon's "The Pursuit of Happiness" (EB), which uses the results of astudy comparing the 50 states, which attempted to link objective criteria with respondents' subjective life-satisfaction scores.

How does one determine unhappiness, or dissatisfaction? The failure to attain the goods that one wants or expects? How is this quantified in a survey? Some surveys may find a correlation with simplicity in lifestyle--others may not, especially when the top 5 happiest countries are industrialized. The definition of happiness is left up to the individual -- though external markers are sought to justify their impression. As far as I have seen, these surveys do not rely upon a notion of happiness universally applicable to all, a standard by which societies (and their ways of life) everywhere can be judged.

But on to my main point: it seems natural to us to think of goods as things that we possess. If we have the good or goods, then we are happy. Is this a problem of language? Does the word "good" lend itself to thinking in terms of abstractions and habits, things that we have? That is, because the word "good" is an [abstract] noun, are we inclined to seek a res that is a substance, rather than an accident. Do we find this problematic conception in other languages, or is it limited only to English? (Merriam-Webster, etymology)
Or is it more the psychology of fallen nature -- we spend much time thinking about what we wish to acquire in order to satisfy inordinate desires? Then, when we come across the word in a writings dealing with ethics, we first think of things before anything else. (Did utilitarianism/consequentialism play any role in promoting this understanding?)

Which of the Greek or Latin Fathers talked about goods as being things that are possessed? I can't remember St. Augustine's treatment. I do remember Boethius talking about the goods that are constitutive of happiness. He seems to share that conception of  the relationship of "good" to happiness with many moderns. From The Consolation of Philosophy: Aristotle does enumerate "goods" (things to be possessed) which are identified by various people as being happiness in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, but this is a dialectical discussion(?) aimed at showing that these opinions are incorrect.

What needs to be recovered is an understanding of good(s) of happiness primarily as an activity, and not as something that we have/possess, either "internal" to us (e.g. virtue or office/power/ability) or external to us (e.g. family). These latter goods are instruments or occasions for activity or the exercise of virtue.

If they are to be really meaningful, these surveys should not be a "sociological" study of what people want and desire and are missing, but a study of how people live. But that would probably require too much of an academic survey.

*Boethius's account, or any traditional Catholic theology for that matter, does seem to be right with respect to  naming God as our first ("highest") good. But this requires a nuanced explanation.