Contemporary Forms of Natural Law and Clarity in Dialogue

I am reading a book right now by J. Budziszewski called What We Can't Not Know. Budziszewski is a Natural Law theorist. Although I enjoy many of his arguments in favor of the Natural Law tradition, I am not always sold by his criticisms of our modern culture and philosophical disciplines. Along with many other contemporary Natural Law theorists, I find myself a little flustered when reading many of the mainstream and seemingly straw-man criticisms he offers. When I was reading Charles Taylor's book, Ethics of Authenticity, I greatly appreciated the line he drew between what he called "boosters" and "knockers". The "boosters" are often the "progressive" types, the typically unreflective pioneers of modern society, militantly ready to usher in the new morality and stomp out the regressive morals of the evil conservatives and fundamentalist types. Then there are the "knockers". I like to picture them as old men in rocking chairs (because they refuse to use "indulgently luxurious modern ones") who negatively project a model of our contemporary western society. Instead of identifying the good and the bad within the model, they, in an often roundabout way, demonize the whole model and suggestively condemn it to the flames. They offer criticisms that would typically only work if we largely eradicated our focuses in psychological interests, technology, and our fascination with new forms of entertainment such as movies, music, and television. While my sympathies are often with them to a relative extent, I sometimes wonder how they ever plan on engaging the cultures and the public square while demonizing these new canonized forms of communication and platforms of dialogue. Budziszewski often follows this tendency, as well as beating the seemingly dead horse of "relativism" and "the culture of feelings", which I hope to explain, is missing the bigger picture. With our new obsessions with the above interests and social tools (e.g., Dr. Phil, television, video games, and psychology, etc.,) and our popular tendency to approach any "opinion" based issue as one that can only be relative to each individual, I understand where he is coming from. However, offering the only option of rooting out these dispositions and tendencies is not going to happen, and, essentially, only takes a surface look, ignoring deeper isssues which give rise to them.

Taylor's right. Confronting our moral dilemmas by attempting to resurrect some ancient or medieval golden age is not a realistic approach to a much needed dialogue between the educated and uneducated, the atheists and theists, the religious and non-religious, the conservatives and liberals... The point is that our society has found new forms of communication, new forms of dialogue (e.g. an emphasis on mutual fairness btw. opposing positions), new forms of identity (e.g., individualism), and we must learn to value and cherish these achievements and new emphases. To attempt to bring an old system back, perhaps a system where book reading is the primary source of information, in the way many of the knockers have approached these issues, is to throw our society into even more confusion. We can not simply attempt a shotgun approach at re-introducing conservative values by merely presenting a community with either/or options (e.g., the old way or the current), but we must learn to take the dialogical steps in illuminating these imporant values, learning to understand ourselves as well as our opposing voices. Dialogue is a rediscovered value that has been greatly emphasized by our current generation of philosophers, and it's a vehicle that would not hurt all of us to hop on. Traditional values do not have to come in a package delivered by a horse and carriage, and contemporary ones do not have to ride in on 2 door coupes either. We should learn to work within this dialogical framework if we are ever going to simultaneously sympathize with other positions and articulate ours.

Obviously we should trace our steps and identify where we have failed. Unfortunately, we have developed an obsession both with epistemic certainty and the centrality of the individual after Descartes entered the picture, and we may have very well failed in our obsessions with epistemic certainty. The problem is, however, we are where we are, and to mature past these immature obsessions is practically a long way away (but not out of the picture).

The modern westerner wears Cartesian spectacles. We do not have to teach him that these are necessarily bad spectacles, however. After all, to assume that they are is to fall into the same error we criticize progressives for: a fundamental assumption that our way is and must be the canonized way toward human freedom. To assume we can not bring about change while still viewing our world through Cartesian lenses (that is, "through a search for certainty") is to assume that we have found the end of the road already. After moving through Descartes to Kant to the Existentialists, we have arrived at a point where discussion and clarity between two positions is vital to a philosophical understanding of ourselves. It is my belief that never in human history has dialogue been so heavily emphasized, and it is truly a wonderful gift that modern westerners have discovered and learned to cherish. The philosophical breakdown of the old way that arose with Descartes and the Reformation did not begin with Descartes and the Reformation, however. Part of the problem was due to an inarticulate communication between the educated aristocracy and the lower class. Yet now we have understood the importance of articulation and dialogue between parties, especially in multicultural circles. Perhaps it is time to give an ear to the multiculturalists, the intellectual representatives of the homosexual communities, the intellectual liberals, and engage those willing to engage us if we are ever going to recollect ourselves. It is my conviction that this is the most practical, articulate, and reasonable first step for our current Natural Law theorists to take on the road to morality.

The latest American dim witted reason for not voting for a politician: "he's too old"... I wonder what the statistics are for that one.

Play, Conflict, and Moral Character

About a week and a half ago I was attending and assisting with the Lindenwood philosophy conference on the American decentralist tradition. Political philosophy has never quite grabbed me the way philosophical disciplines like ontology, metaphysics, ethics, and theology have, and I suppose much of this personal disinterest is a failure to see where all the nuts and bolts connect political philosophy to the latter disciplines. James Schall particularly helped me with this one, and many of these answers were hiding in the very title of his book I just recently finished: “The Unseriousness of Human Affairs”. Yet I think we could dig a little deeper than “human affairs” and illuminate human nature as an even finer focus, at least to make sense of connections between something like ontology and political philosophy.

I think, more than anything, the tension between ontology (the study of being and essences) and political philosophy and the complexity of the relationship between the two has engaged as well as frustrated my reflections. Nevertheless, Schall’s insight into this matter, however unintentional it may be, has particularly helped me identify the internal links between internal and external human affairs, for ex., how virtue might shape a character and how human character shapes executive decisions concerning political and governmental affairs. If intellectuals and philosophers are ever going to understand the relevance of political philosophy to the politically disengaged individual, we must understand the necessary connections between politics and human nature.

I would bet that there isn’t a more popular topic for our century in politics than war and not a more popular subject within the past decade for philosophers than dialogical conflict within the public square. But Schall hits beneath the surface. The most fundamental beginning point of a conflict, he suggests, is not on the battlefield or even in public forums. The primary source of conflict, resides in the minds and hearts of human beings during their leisure time, a topic I focused on in my previous entry. Conflict originally arises from a free choice, but once the choice has been made, necessity follows. It’s not so easy to repair hazards which arise necessarily, but it might be easier to curb the conflict if we can confront the human when he is perceived and perceives himself to be the most free, during his leisure time. In that moment we are faced with an obligation to make a responsible choice which forms our character, which in turn, influences our future decisions under the public eye and effects the world around us. This topic of leisure might be a pivotal bridge between the essence of human nature and the purpose of human government and politics. Leisure is when we find ourselves to be most free, to engage in activities which are often simply done for themselves as an end in themselves. And once we open this arena, theology, religion, and all those other out-of-fashion topics to discuss among philosophers become all the more pertinent to discuss.

At this point, virtue becomes important; moral development becomes important, and the shaping of the personal character of the philosopher becomes his primary task. The other night, a very insightful cousin of mine pointed out that conflicts which arise from semantic confusion are not essentially semantic at all. They are essentially misunderstanding and a failure on both sides to clarify and articulate. And a quote from Pope Benedict couldn’t be more relevant here, "The 'best hypothesis' which, to be accepted, requires that man and his reason 'give up their position of dominance and take the risk of humbly listening.'" An unwillingness to listen has the individual turned in upon his own reasoning or faith. We can only be more careful in our consideration of how much blood is actually on our hands. Selfishness and pride really do murder lives.

Excellence in leisure and the life lived in peace and enjoyment

It is refreshing to be able to relax and have time to myself this summer, and I am reading the perfect book for leisure time, The Unseriousness of Human Affairs by Fr. James Schall. He is a professor at Georgetown, a priest, and a hell of a good writer. It is also very nice to receive a dose of Aristotelian ethics and teleology when one is unsure of how to balance contentment and productivity in one’s leisurely activities. We always have much to plan for but we also have much room for character development.
Schall is very good at arguing for the true status of war in society. His emphasis is that we should most often be concerned with how we condition ourselves while we are not overtly in battle. The essence and true meat of war take root in the home and in the public square, not on the battlefield. Yet, it is a marvel to me that we would rather obsess over federal concerns while our moral frameworks are rotting out from under our own homes. Well, I’ll be honest, it is not really a marvel… given our human tendency to obsess over other people’s mistakes, economic band-aids, and political scapegoats, only to direct our attention from our own grime and grease in our own garages.
But Aristotle and Plato understand free activity outside of our sometimes degrading bureaucracy, and Schall illuminates the importance of excelling at this free activity quite succinctly. Schall offers Aristotle’s belief, “to play is to contemplate” (“Tudere Contemplari” ?), as a metaphysical structure to all of our free activity, that is, activity that does not have to be done, activity that is not a must, as one would be if one was in a state of war or in a capitalist work machine. When we are not in a state of war, we act as we choose, not as we must. If we can act as we choose, this is an expression of true human freedom, and to choose to act excellently is perhaps the freest of human activity. Why? Because, to act excellently is to fulfill the virtue of being truly human, and a most intelligible and good action is seen to tend toward good goals and productive effects. That is, we are shaped, fulfilled, and appreciated by virtue of the final causes of our free activity. Thus, when we are not in the workplace, in the factory, or on the battlefield, we should choose our activity wisely, responsibly, and attentively. A good politician is a good mother or father, and a good school teacher is a good parent. Why? Because we are shaped by habits, by the choice of our habits, and our choice of how we perform those habits. Yet, we do not do this for utilitarian ends. We do this as an enjoyment in and of itself. Our activity should be appreciated for what it is, because every second and ounce of it performed is good. Therefore, “Evil for good” is a farce. Some Hegelian form of enslavement for the sake of freedom is not honorable, because such things are not good as ends in themselves. They present a future image of “good” and that is all. Not only so, but they obsess and work over time to make goodness and assure that goodness is brought about. They are fundamentally self-absorbed.
These are great concepts for a starving society. I look forward to more of this book.