Slave morality and the sexual revolution....

Before I begin, I need to apologize to any readers for the lack of posts over the last six months. I recently started business school, work full time, and have three young children at home, so I haven't found the time to get to this like I'd like to. Also, the muse disappeared for awhile. I will attempt to post every other Saturday going forward. Last night, our television provider was giving a free subscription to HBO. An induction ceremony for various groups into the rock 'n'roll Hall of Fame was on, and being a fan of music, I thought I'd tune in. Given that I have grown up in the post-modern/post Christian/atheist existentilialist narrative, one would think I wouldn't be surprised by what I would hear on a show that has the sexual revolution's worldly vision expressed at every other presentation. I shouldn't say I was surprised, but after earning graduate degrees in philosophy and Catholic Studies, I should say that I was a little more prepared to discern exactly what I was digesting when listening to the will to power ethic that was portrayed. Thinking back to my youth and watching similar shows, the thought crossed my mind about just how poisonous these artists are to the cultural health of our country. The harbingers of the sexual revolution, with their 50 year old archaic ideas that are no newer than humanity itself, dribble poison before the eyes of our children in psuedo-intellectual catch phrases, in a "cool" way, and suddenly our youth is lost in a horrible pro-male feminism and wicked revolutionist ideology. Two presentations caught my eye. One was recognizing the Brooklyn based rap group "Public Enemy," and the other was a band that I don't even recall the name. The presenter for Public Enemy threw out phrases like, "revolution, radicalism, rebellion," and painted them in romantic and poetic light. The group themselves got up and proclaimed the same thing, revolt against the racist powers of America that have held the black man down. Another catch phrase was "fight the power." This fodder coming from the mouths of artistic talent, and in an intellectual guise, is what buries our children in what can only be described as intellectual poison. The lead member of Public Enemy stood in front of the crowd and said he is "only after truth." Fair enough, but I had the thought that I wish I could put the whole show on pause and ask him the famous question of Pontius Pilate, "Quid est veritas?" (What is truth?) You see, all of the rhetoric struck me as empty, and dangerously empty. Do they understand that they are articulating violence and hate through words like "revolution, radical, rebellion, racist?" Quid est veritas? All of the language they used was empty rhetoric. Of course, they received adulation for what they were saying because it certainly "sounds" good. I was reminded of Socrates and his problem with the sophists of his day. The sophists hid a will to power and domination behind rhetoric. They were about persuasion and not truth, Socrates held them to truth, and they put him to death for it. The rhetoric was persuasive, but it was EMPTY. Again, I wished I could put the show on hold and question the presenters. What is this "American racism" you speak of? Is there institutionalized racism in America today? I would say in certain parts of the country, perhaps. They mentioned that most people in prison are African American and pointed to that as demonstration that America was racist. Why is it the case that the majority of people in prison are black? Do police officers target black males? Possibly, but I would posit this is based on the rule of averages. It is human nature to make generalizations based on appearances. If your chances of making a bust and protecting the public go up if you pull a black man over, won't you probably tend to do that? Profiling stinks, but it's based on the rule of averages. I would submit that it is not American institutional racism that has put a disproportianate number of African Americans in prison; I would submit that it's the very sexual revolution that has done this. Sure, there may be pockets of institutional racism, but you typically don't go to jail in this country unless you've been caught committing a crime. What leads to making young men susceptible to crime? Having no fathers in the home. The pscyhological and sociological proof is in the empirical pudding, yet we blame government institutions for the break down of African American culture. So what is it that pushed the father out of the home, and most devastatingly in the African American community? The pill.(To silence the haters who will immediately shout "racism" at the way I am writing here, I give a very simply principle that I live by. Christ said "Whatever you've done unto the least of my brethren, you've done unto me." I abide by that quote, and like MLK, I judge a man based on the content of his character. You simply cannot live the Gospel values an be racist.) We continue to be willfully ignorant of the social toll of the new ideology of evil that is destroying the family and creating chaos. What has the pill done for us? It has given us sexual liberation, which has turned men into predators and pornographers, women into masculinists, drove dad from the home, forced mom into the workforce, devalued children, driven many women and children into poverty, increased suicide, depression, rape, and exploded abortion. Some pleasant fruit, is it not? So, then, we come to an all female band, where one of the members stood before the crowd and claimed there used to be only four professions for women, mom, teacher, nurse, or secretary. She chose to join a band, thus insinuating that she stood for womankind's liberation. I am so tired of this dribble that I get dyspepsia when I hear it. Someone please break out the smelling salts! What has the archaic 60's so called forward thinking done for women? Just read the blogs of the very harbingers of the sexual revolution to see what it has wrought. Women angry at the institution of marriage because they allow their husbands to view pornography, which then makes them disinterested in sex with their wives. Women upset with life because they pursued career over children, and suddenly the natural law catches up to them. Women angry because men are either not interested in sex, or only interested in youthful beauty, and they run out on their wives for the newest beauty. Let's break out the megaphone: sexual revolution feminists, you are sleeping in the bed you've made! Paul VI, sitting at God's right hand, must be smiling at the irony! Why do these masculinists call themselves feminists? Why do we continue to believe the lie that the TRULY feminine virtues of personalism, nurture, care of children, thrift, emotional connectivity, sentimentality, impervious devotion, cleanliness, good manners, modesty, impeccable charity, care taking, and love are vice? Why must the woman, who has chosen to be everything to someone, instead of something to everyone, be disparaged as anti-woman? She is woman at her finest! She is the queen of creation! We think too worldly with the will to power mentality when we let 1960's feminism poison our minds in this way. Think as God thinks. Our Father will reward in secret because he sees in secret. Stay at home moms, if you are reading this, you are training yourself in virtue before the only eyes that matter, and those are God's! Not to mention, while your daily efforts may go unrecognized by the world, you are creating the salt of the earth and preserving our society for the future, because you are creating the correct environment to raise virtuous citizens. As is usual in our crazy world, the best citizens are criticized for being the worst. You are the salt of this earth and a testament to the absolute beauty of femininity! Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Of course, I can hear the masculinist feminists, who traded their femininity for masculinity, screaming that I am just another sexist pig who wants to hold womankind down. On the contrary, I am in alignment with the masculinist feminists in that it is unjust for a woman to be treated differently than a man in terms of hiring, wages, glass ceilings, etc. Nonetheless, there is great value in not pursuing career over family because quite simply, women are better at tending to the family. Corporations ought to make it possible for women to work around children if necessary, but for heaven's sake, let's get rid of the idea that to be a powerful, good woman, you have to be a Plato or career woman. A stay at home mother is not a bad thing, it is the greatest thing on earth. She is not only Plato to her child, she is also priest, prophet, nurse, sage, story teller, lover, comforter, trainer in virtue, feeder, caretaker. In short, EVERYTHING TO SOMEBODY. Before someone throws the label "sexist" at me out there, let me say that life would be so drab without women in my life. My best friend is a woman (my wife), I owe it to a woman (my mother) for getting me out of an alcoholic existintialist, vicious life style, because of her prayers to another woman, Mary. This man is simply anti-masculinist (read 1960's) feminism. So, the poison that is the result of the sexual revolution will probably not show it's face until it's too late and we realize how awful it really is through actual persecution and pain. These artists with their empty rhetoric, spewing about truth, but using the word "truth" to tell lies, need prayers as they are perpetuating the injustices they purport to despise.

Vice the end of conscience...

The other night I was watching the O'Reilly Factor and they were discussing gay marriage in light of DOMA and the Supreme Court debating whether they will take up the case or not.  On the program, both O'Reilly and his guest stated that "the compelling arguments are on the side of gay marriage." O'Reilly stated, "I want all Americans to be happy."  This is an interesting philosophical comment because what one defines as "happy" could determine what we think is ethical or not.  I thought as I watched the program, "No, the compelling arguments are just not presented."  Honestly, I don't know how compelling of an argument is "We love each other, so we should also be allowed to marry."  The humanistic side of us wants to be understanding, because who can detest love? Who can stand in the way of love?  It begs the question, "What is love?"

In thinking this through, freedom of conscience often came to mind.  As a Catholic, am I impinging upon the freedom of homosexuals to deny them the opportunity to marry?  In another context, what if homosexuals were in control and told the Catholic Church it needed to marry homosexuals or face civil and criminal penalties?  Would that be considered tyranny in my eyes?  Perhaps this is what homosexuals think now of the current laws denying them the ability to "marry," although homosexuals tend to not be able to define marriage.  When we can't even determine what we are talking about, it's tough to build any argument.  Logic is a part of argument, so definitions are key if we are to argue. Homosexual "marriage" advocates lose on this point.

So it seems we are at a stalemate with regards to freedom of conscience, since depending upon the eye of the beholder, tyranny is that of being forced or blocked from excercising conscience.  Of course, if we start to think about what freedom of conscience is, we quickly realize that freedom of conscience cannot extend to criminal vice and injustice.  That is,  freedom of conscience only stands the test if it has demarcated lines of where we cross the line into vice.  Otherwise, we have the issue of the Nazi who killed Jews in good conscience not being guilty of a crime because he did it in good conscience.  That is, he did it without guilt because his conscience was unformed.  Obviously, such a view is terrifying in the consequences that it renders.  Such a view of freedom is Nietzschean, the strong create morality, or when it comes to American culture, the sodomite customs have obtained the force of reason, although not stemming from reason, because they've been repeated loud enough and long enough.  The "popular" view of accepting gay "marriage" has been intimidated into us.

So in the two opposing views presented above we see a very real distinction.  The freedom of religion has its restraints at vice. No religion is allowed to practice, say, human sacrifice because it is contrary to the natural law.  No matter how far you push it, being contrary to reason, murder is a vice that is disallowed.  Similarly, when it comes to the gay marriage debate, we are forced to ask whether or not it is vice?  Is it good for the community to allow this practice?   Denying someone the ability to commit vice is not tyranny, but the essence of true liberty as it trains that person in virtue.

Socially, we can look at what happens per accidens and legally when homosexual "marriage" is made legal.  First, it is backed by the state as a right; if the state backs it, then it is considered "reasonable behavior" and becomes customary.  Since we are atheist as a culture, and might makes right, if something is backed by the law, then it becomes what is morally right.  A scary proposition, but exactly the world Obama and his ilk have created.  It's amazing to think, under the atheistic governance, we could say that slavery was moral because it was legal.  I can't imagine anyone really wanting to hold that position now, but since there is no moral truth, if the winds changed direction tomorrow, we could be having the state tell us it is a good thing, and we would accept it.  See why we need the check and balance that is God?

Legally, what follows is no restriction on any kind of "marriage" because the essential definition of marriage jumps from "Permanent covenant between man and woman for the good of procreation and society," to "Two beings that 'love' each other." With the change in definition comes the "distributive justice" of allowing all to marry animals, objects, polygamy, bigamy, and homosexual unions.  Secondly, the ramification of cultural acceptance leads to real tyranny of conscience. Church's, based on the (false) philosophical presuppositions of the state and it's recognition of the so called rights of homosexuals, are forced to perform weddings in violation of their conscience. First they will face civil penalties, then criminal.  So yes, America, tyranny is knocking on the door.  This tyranny will silence opposition and imprison (or possibly worse) the virtuous.  The state is now the arbiter of Nietzschean relativism and it's consequences will be like all democracies who lost virtue; democracy without virtue will become tyranny.

Socially, the consequences are devastating beyond the tyranny it creates.  Dumbing down the dignity of sexuality and removing its purpose opens the gate for broken families and godlessness. These are two of the principle causes of social disarray we face today.  We have a sodomite culture; the battle to stop unwarranted lust and concupiscence, the battle that each of us face (should we listen to reason or our members?), was lost when we dissassociated sex from procreation.  As Paul VI warned, we would see a continuous breakdown of family life, children in fatherless homes, children in gay homes, abuse of women, increased abortion, and ultimately, with the breakdown of the family comes the breakdown of society.  The "new ideology of evil" has attacked the fundamental element of society, and is now seeping into legal justice.  The internal individual tyranny of the members on a wide scale leads to real tyranny on the governmental scale.  Gay 'marriage,' like abortion, will be the harbinger of the death of American democracy. We have seen the existentialist musings coming out of Casey vs. Planned Parenthood; and the self righteous atheist morality will soon attack freedom of conscience. Priests will be imprisoned for failing to perform homosexual unions.  I could foresee, one by one, the Protestant church's giving into the demands of the state.  Of course, the Catholic Church being guided by the Holy Spirit, and with divine authority, would never give in.  So it is our priests that will suffer.  In a theological context, we get what we deserve.  God has given us up to our own members, and now we'll have to live with the bloody consequences.

Often in debates, the emotional argument comes forth, "If people love each other, they should be able to marry."  We also hear that "I don't understand why Christians care so much about gay marriage, let people do what they want. It doesn't hurt you if there is gay marriage."  Perhaps on an individual level, this statement has some truth.  On an individual level, it does not hurt me if two men choose to have relations.  We are already seeing the cultural impact of existentialist morality, depressed and suicidal kids, murders in schools, shooting rampages.  The gay mentality is part of a larger practical atheism and lack of a fear of God.  The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, the lack of that fear leads to folly.  So the cultural impact of the anti-true family mentality is something that we could gather empirical data for. So in a sense, gay "marriage" does hurt me on some level.  I am saddened, but also forced to laugh, when I see talking heads discuss the school shootings that have become so normal in our atheistic society. They always blame the means and not the cause.  Being part of the blind existentialist atheism, they see evil and attack how it is done, not it's source.  They throw water on the burn instead of putting out the fire.

The problem Christians have with gay "marriage" is that they are being told to give up truth for a lie.  The outrage is over truth!  I once heard a comedian saying, "Why should Christians worry, if they are right, homosexuals are going to hell anyway. You win."  It's not the homosexual person that bugs us so much, it's the being told to accept a lie.  We are by nature truth seeking beings, so no matter how much you scream, intimidate, banter, or bully, someone, somewhere, will go against the mob mentality and stand for truth.  Socrates did it, Christ did it, and many of the martyrs did it.  The outrage from homosexual activists about this is not about "justice" or "rights," it stems from the inner sense of their nature that their lifestyle is immoral.  The outrage at being told to accept gay marriage from Christians and natural law theorists is the sacrificing truth for a lie.

These are strong words, so how can we say homosexual "marriage" is a lie?  We currently live in an existentialist society.  Our ethic is a personal preference/will to power morality.  Basically, there is no ontological or formal good, so therefore each person is free to choose what they think is good.  Our politics are not about truth, but about competing wills, with competing conceptions of what is good.  Opinion of the powerful is what we call right, and who is powerful changes with the wind.  Sexual ethics in this context become "sex is good for me in how I determine it. It is my right as an individual to invent the correct sexuality for me. I am a sexual self-creator."  So we have transvestites, homosexuals, bigamists, polygamists, traditionalists, and on and on.  Is this the correct view?  Are we essentially self-creators or do we have a definite nature that determines how we ought to behave sexually?

Let's examine the case.  It certainly seems we have an internal directedness towards a few things.  We seek to do what is good to the best of our ability. We would automatically be repulsed by what is evil.  We move away from it. Of course, evil finds a way to present itself as good, but we are directed to do what is good an pleasing to us.  That seems to be natural.

We also seek to preserve ourselves.  We have an internal directedness to eat, sleep, and take care of ourselves.  Again, we seem to have a nature that we don't simply invent.

We also seek to preserve the species.  We have an internal directedness, often times vehement, to have sex.  This directedness is for a purpose of procreation.  If we are honest with ourselves, the immense pleasure that is intercourse, seems to be directed simply to preservation of the species, otherwise it seems nature would have made sex superfluous.  If we accept evolution, we would have to say sex would be extinct, except that it serves the purpose of procreation.  (On a side note, isn't it strange that atheists always want us to accept evolutionary theory, but also support homosexual "marriage."  If we accept evolution, given that species only do what preserves them, it seems homosexuality should've disappeared thousands of years ago.  Perhaps there is a spiritual/moral element?)  So it seems "natural" or that we have a nature determining our behavior. We are not total self-creators.

If this last paragraph is true, then we can begin to formulate an essential argument against homosexual "marriage."  No more of the "slippery slope" arguments, which are all true, but we can see homosexual marriage for what it is, a lie.

The Church teaches that sexuality has a twofold purpose - procreation and unity.  Obviously, homosexuality fails the procreation litmus test for the ethical use of sexuality.  Remember that ethics are studies of theories of action.  What is good for human beings to do?  The good coincides with the true. What is good is also true and vice versa.  So, the truth of our being says that sexuality should be used for procreation?  Why? Because sexuality is designed for that purpose. To deny it that is to deny reality.  Of course, you will get the per accidens/red herring of an argument that we allow old heterosexual couples to marry, and they cannot procreate, so that defeats your argument.  Not really because the essence of the sexual union between man and woman is the ability to procreate; take away the accidental characteristic of age, and children are the fruit of that union.  With homosexuality, it is essentially barren. There are no accidental characteristics that can be removed to make that union procreative.  In philosophical terms, homosexuality is per se barren, while heterosexual union can be per accidens.  The homosexual red herring here fails.

The second part of what the Church teaches is that sexuality must be unitive.  Prima facie homosexual marriage is unitive.  Friendship can be had between people of the same sex, and virtuous friendship at that.  The question becomes whether adding the element of sex to the equation can create a true friendship of virtue?  An argument can be made to the contrary.  Love and friendship are defined as "willing the good of another."  By acting contrary to the purposes of nature, can we be said to be willing the good of that other person? Or are we simply satisfying concupiscence?  Contraception comes to mind, as we have very real evidence that a true frienship of virtue, a friendship that is a permanent state of character and is never lost, is very difficult to heterosexual couples who practice the same barrenness.  Divorce rates are substantially higher amongst contracepting couples.  Unfortunately, we have no data for homosexual couples, but I would imagine the survival of the unions is on shaky ground.  Given this, it seems that homosexual "marriage" fails on the unitive side of things.

So it seems homosexual "marriage" fails on the two principles that make a marriage a marriage.  Let's not sacrifice truth for a lie.  Let's love the truth more than our friends.  Too bad O'Reilly and his co-host only listen to emotional arguments and make claims like "The arguments are on the homosexual's side."  The emotions are on their side. Not necessarily the arguments.  Of course, the arguments are on their side if we accept the cultural existentialist morality we live in. If that morality is true, then the arguments are on their side. Unfortunately, I don't think our cultural morality is the most rational one. 

In the next post, we will examine homosexual "marriage" in light of virtue theory, and see if it can teach us anything.

Virtuous sex....

We saw in the last post what constitutes virtue on Aristotle's definition (i.e. that virute is a state of character consisting in a choice of the mean as made by the practically wise man.)  I wish to apply this, in my opinion the most rationally cogent and worthy of assent ethics there are, to a realm that is always sure to draw attention and admirers, sex.

We live in an age that likes to poison its wives, murder its children and grandparents, and is in love with mammon.  There is a shining light upon the hill, the Church and her sexual ethics, but hers is a voice in the wilderness.  Ruled by lower desires we have yet as a culture to gain the strength to shurk off the insane master we are all ruled by. Aristotle, and the Church, offer us a freedom for the perfection of our natures, if we'll only listen.

Catholic, and Christian sexual ethics usually draw the ire of progessives, sometimes rightfully so, for being rigid, or even stoical.  There are Christians who misinterpret the Gospel in a Manichean, dualistic, or Kantian way, and then brow beat moderns with a categorical command of the wickedness of sexuality.  This, of course, is anti-Christian and wrong.  God gave us sexuality, and all that exists is good, so He must have meant for us to enjoy it.  Of course, when talking about sexuality, you always walk a thin rope, as visions of Mary have often revealed that the number one thing that gets souls banished to hell is lust.  Sexuality gives us the power to be co-creators, a great power indeed, but with great power comes great responsibility.  Sexuality, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, is the place where the first dehumanizing gaze took place, and it was the beginning of murder and all other sin.  Pride was the initial sin, but then our first parents realized they were naked. As John Paul the Great said, Adam looked upon Eve not as a person for the first time, but as an object of his gratification.  Lust is like a seed that dehumanizes others and can lead to all sorts of other crimes.

I say, then, that I walk a tight rope in talking about sexuality, but it is a tight rope that needs to be walked.  And, the last paragraph probably looks like the beginning of a dualistic diatribe against sex and sexuality.  Sed contra, God told us to be fruitful and multiply, which to my mind suggests he wanted us to enjoy our sexuality.  But as in all things with virtue or perfection, the correct context must be realized.  Let's just put it this way, those large Catholic families give us a hint that Catholic couples know how to enjoy sex, and they should.  God gave it to us as a very wonderful and humanizing gift.  It is a way in which we can realize our full humanity, our full perfection, a truly dignified life as gift, a fully human life.  And the place where you can realize your most human perfection, is also the place where the slightest errors can help you realize your most beastly attributes.  Small mistakes in the beginning result in large mistakes at the end. 

So what can Aristotle teach us about sexuality? What can the Church?  I am going to write today about virtuous sex.  In the last post, we talked about how temperance is the mean between self-indulgence and insensibility.  Self-indulgence being the over gratification in pleasures of touch, namely food and sex.  Insensibility being the under-indulgence as regards sex and food.  Speaking in the context of marriage, we actually have vindication for virtue theory as practiced in Catholic married couples.

The Church teaches, number one, that the only context in which sexuality is valid is within marriage.  This may seem boring to the modern slave, but to be virtuous there has to be a purpose, or telos, and a context for which something is done.  In the case of sexuality, its purpose is twofold, unitive and procreative.  Sexuality obviously serves the purpose of preserving the species, but it also serves the purpose of creating the greatest friendships on the planet, that between husband and wife.  Outside of the context of marriage, while in the ephemeral sex may be "fun," in the long run it leads to injury to individuals and society.  We have disease, fueds, violence, abortion, divorce, and real crime as the result of uncontrolled sexual desire.  Of course, these evils would exist even if sexuality was realized exclusively in marriage, but de-contextualized sex does lead to very real social evils.  As John Paul II said, the new ideologies of evil are more sinister than the old because they attack the cell of society instead of institutions, the family.  John Paul II didn't see the America of today, or he might say that they are now attacking both, the family is broken and our institutions are starting to reflect that with top down tyranny creating laws that contradict the natural law.  Obama has only begun to show his fangs.

So, the Church teaches that sexuality should be unitive and procreative.  Our culture wants to say all it need be is unitive.  "If they love each other, marriage between two individuals of the same sex is ok." "If they love each other, then marriage between a man and his dog should be ok."  Disturbing, but legally if "love" loosely defined is the prerequisite of marriage, we undermine society at its very principle.  The purpose of giving married couples special incentives is to preserve the nation, it's not based on some false jus naturale or false freedom.

From Catholicism, we get the context then. Sex must be within marriage; it must be unitive; it must be procreative.  Outside of that, the Church says be fruitful and multiply.

This doesn't seem too restrictive, but it is a challenge.  Virtue is a challenge.  The Church in her wisdom has given us NFP, which maintains both of the purposes of marriage, it draws the couple closer in communication and desire, and serves the function of procreation.  When paralelled with virtue theory, NFP is lifted from the musings of celibate men stuck in some archaic fideism, to a rationally cogent and defensible ethic.

NFP demands that the man and the woman, if they seek to avoid having a child for the time being for legitimate reasons, restrain their passions during the woman's fertile time.  So they are forced to communicate about their struggles, their desires, and even creates time for romance (the emotional romance women crave, not the physical romance men crave.) 

In general, men tend to the physical, or in the scheme of virtue theory and temperance, they tend to want to overindulge in sex (darn that testosterone.)  Women, on the other hand, in general, tend to the insensible when it comes to sex.  In layman's terms, the man always wants it, and the woman rarely wants it.  NFP forces their hand to the mean, not over indulging, and not under-indulging.  During the fertile times, the man must restrain his passions and see his woman for all her other gifts; he must be temperate in the area where vice is most pernicious to him.  During the infertile periods, the woman must give way to her natural bent to insensibility if she wants a happy marriage.  NFP requires the couples meet the mean and have virtuous sex lives. (Incidentally, the non-difference in homosexual couples eliminates this balance to "bend" them to virtue. A truly virtuous sex life, praise God for His wisdom, requires the balance of the sexes.  Crazy, this thing we call nature.  Men need women and women need men.  Like a true philosopher here, I know, stating the obvious.)

The beauty is there is statistical  vindication of both what the Church teaches and virtue theory realized in NFP.  NFP couples have a statistical divorce rate of less than 3%, outside of the margin for error.  Even better no poisioning of the wife or giving up of masculinity as in vasectomy. Non-NFP couples that rate is at 51%.   Most people don't get married hoping to get divorced, in fact, no one does (unless the marriage is set up on false pretenses anyway, say for economic gain or something.)  So living temperance in marriage means a satisfying marriage; a true and perfect marriage (as perfect as it gets for we sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.)  Aristotle's virtue theory claims that living virtue through a complete life is the happy life.  We have statistical vindication of virtue theory, and proof that the Church does not seek to hinder us.  She wants us to be happy. And being happy means living virtuously, and having reason and will in charge of the lower members.

So, my advice to married couples?  Have virtuous sex.

Relativity vs. Relativism

Before I start this post, I must apologize for the 2 week delay in posts. We have had a flu bug in the house, and our weekends have been busy. My hope is to publish one post a week, every weekend.  I will try to stick to that, but occasionally things come up that delay publishing.  The saying of Peter Kreeft comes to mind, when asked what the best book he ever wrote was, he answered, "The one I didn't write when my kids were little."  My blog may follow that, but I will try to be here once a week.

With the pope stepping down, one of his most famous sayings has been on my mind as of late. At the funeral oration of John Paul the Great, then Cardinal Ratzinger coined the phrase, "the dictatorship of relativism."  Today we are going to look at relativism vs. relativity.  I am going to argue that there is relativity in morality, but not relativism.  Is this just a sophistical play on words?  We shall see.

First, what is relativism?  Numerous of my previous posts have highlighted the quiddity or "whatness" of relativism.  It is our dominant social ethic, coming from the elites and spoon fed to us daily by a sycophantic media preying upon our desiring element.  In a nutshell, relativism is the claim that there is no moral truth, that actions are socially constructed, and the rightness or wrongness of actions is impossible to determine. What is right depends on personal preference, i.e. do I think it is right? Obviously, on a social scale this is a very dangerous ethos as it realizes itself in the domination of the weak by the strong.  Basically, relativism says there is no right and wrong; nothing is absolutely impermissable if it feels right.  Obviously, when talking about actions or theories of actions, you really have to involve all of the powers of soul, things like sex drive, food consumption, sight, hearing, growth, nutrition, etc. all contribute to the conversation.

The question that ethics ask are, "What is good for the human being to do? Is there such a thing as good?  If so, is it pleasure or something else?" Many wish to associate what is good with pleasure, but as Plato questions, are there pleasures that are not good? If so, pleasure cannot be the good.  Following Aristotle and Aquinas, though, we can say that pleasure is concomitant with good, and when someone is truly good they have the best taste in pleasures.  What does this mean?

For Aristotle, the virtuous man is the happiest man and virtue is something that needs to be lived. The virtuous man, in light of his virtuous character, knows what the best pleasures are and therefore chooses what is truly good for himself.  Virtue, on Aristotle's definition, is a state of character that consists in the choice of a mean as made by the practically wise man.  In other words, virtue is a rather permanent state in someone's character that has been developed through practice.  They practice that by continuosly choosing the mean in ethical situations, and it is the practically wise man who consistently chooses the mean.  What is the mean?

We will use the virtue of temperance as our example.  The virtue of temperance has as its object (that which it aims at or its goal) pleasures of touch.  Basically, temperance involves sex and food, as these are the two pleasures of touch.  The temperate man will, through habit or practice, always choose what is a temperate action relative to him.   So, Milo the wrestler (Aristotle's example) has a different mean than a 100 pound woman.  Milo needs to eat 10,000 calories per day to maintain his physical conditioning to have the ability to compete.  If a 100 pound woman were to eat that, she would fall into the excess of over indulgence, because relative to her and the context in which she lives, 10,000 calories per day would be excess.  You and I can look and say that an NFL athlete who consumes 10,000 calories per day is not acting immorally, while anyone else, not involved in physical training, could be said to be immoral for eating that way.  This is what I am calling relativity.

Relativity in ethics simply means that there is a right way to act in moral situations, but what that right way to act is depends upon the context in which it is realized.  This is to be distinguished from relativism, which says that there is no right way to act in moral situations, all that is right is what I feel is right.  Reason easily says otherwise. This is why we find it morally repugnant when people are morbidly obese, it is a lifestyle of over indulgence; a lifestyle of sin that has gotten them there.  We wouldn't have that innate reaction to sloth or overindulgence if reason didn't tell us that this person was acting immorally.

The dictatorship of relativism, then, tells us we cannot make judgment calls in ethics because no one ethical system is superior rationally to any other.  Some people do things their own way, and others do it theirs, no reason to judge.  Except that we do and there is a reason we do.  It's called the natural law, which is the ultimate ground, or context in which human beings can make judgments about what is moral or what is immoral.

In short, virtue is realized in a context, as our wrestler and small woman demonstrate above.  The ultimate context we have is the natural law as it governs how every single human being behaves. Not in the Kantian sense of an external tyrant dictating all that we do, but an internal prompting that draws us to what is true and good.  We can judge other cultures based on whether their actions contradict the natural law.  We'll discuss the precepts of the natural law at a later date.

It is clear that context matters in morality, as was shown above with temperance.  We can make that same claim with the other virtues.  Is it courage that drives a man to save his comrades in war?  Or is it something else? It depends on the context.  If he jumps in foolishly, thinking that he can win because he's overwhelmed his enemy every time, but then realizes he is overwhelmed, and runs scared, then it wasn't courage, but expectation of success that drove him.  We can do this for the other virtues as well.

So, for Aristotle, and I think he's right, virtue is realized as a mean. So temperance is the mean between the excess of overindulgence, and the defect of insensibility.  What is over indulgence, and insensible, depends upon the context; but there is sin for all of us.  Choosing what is temperate is realizable for all of us, again relative to the context.

In Catholic circles, this means we ought to try to hit the mean through communication with God.  We see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face.  Now, what is right is sometimes cloudy, but virtue theory at least gives us a map in which we can aim at the mean.  In shooting golf, if you hit the green and not a hole in one, you're still doing pretty well. The same goes for us.  The next question is how to be virtuous?  Find someone who is virtuous and mimick them.  Or, simply think as Christ taught us to think, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  This simple phrase will make you practically wise in the gamut of the infinite activity we find ourselves in. 

So I'll let you be the judge, relativity vs. relativism.  Which coincides more with our natural knowledge of right and wrong?  It is as if our morality copies the very universe in which we exist. Einstein's Theory of Relativity says that the measurement of quantities are relative to the velocities of the observers.  Measurements of morality are relative to the contexts they are realized in. Yet there is moral right and wrong.  We all know it inherently; it's time we start thinking and living that way.

The real nihilism....

A few days ago, my wife was perusing Facebook and came across a story about a waiter in Texas who heroically asked a family to leave his restaurant because they were complaining about a child with mental disabilities.  The story went that, a family with a young child that is mentally challenged, was at the restaurant to eat, and another family began complaining about the behavior of the child.  The waiter told the complainers that he would not be able to serve them.  Bravo.

I reiterate this story, not because it is a feel good story of a man behaving virtuously, but because of some of the comments that were left after the fact on the Facebook page.  There were a number of posts that read to the like of "These mongoloids are dragging down our species," "This is why Hitler had his eugenics right. No one should have to put up with these apes."  "Maybe I should bring my chimp to restaurants with me, I garuantee they are more intelligent than this child that these people had to put up with."  They were, quite frankly, some of the most offensive things I've read in a long time.  It angered me because of the injustice of it, but it shows you where the intellectual trajectory of our culture has gone post Darwin; nihilistic atheism.

As I tried to root out the philosophy that would praise Hitler, as disgusting as that is, my thought turned to Nietzsche as well as the introlocuter Thrasymachus, who makes his appearance in the first book of Plato's Republic.  Will to power is an intriguing philosophy, and it has tricked minds for millennia. It perhaps was never so well articulated as it was by Nietzsche, but we shall in the future check on a) Whether it is fair to say Nietzsche is the represtantive of modern culture, and b) after showing this we will challenge his thinking with the aid of classical philosophy.  In my mind, the whole debate comes down to Aquinas vs Nietzsche. Whose philosophy is more commensurate with reality?  Aquinas is the fulfillment, or the last great page in the classical tradition, and Nietzsche, unlike most modern philosophers was actually a philosopher.  I read geniuses like Hegel, or Kant, and think of them as creative geniuses, not interpretive ones.  Nietzsche, like Aquinas, was more of an interpreter of reality, i.e. more of a philosopher than a poet.  But the question comes down to, whose philosophy explains reality better?  We'll put them up against each other regularly here.

So what is this truly nihilistic philosophy we face with the downgoers, the arguers for non-human dignity?  Nietzsche accused the "ascetic ideal" as a nihilism of his day; he accused Judaism, and the Cross, of being Europe's disease; its nihilism.  This imagined nihilism has given way to a real bloody nihilism, in an age that is everything Nietzsche envisioned, one of a will to power ethic, where justice is what Thrasymachus called it, "justice is simply what is good for the stronger."  These eugenics proponents, are just the voice of a nihilistic relativism that destroys humanity; drugs women to eliminate children; murders children; chooses the barren desert of homosexuality; experiments on human beings; de-humanizes women and children; in short, a bloody philosophy, an ideology of evil that tends to nothingness - which is the essence of evil!

The eugenicists may question the idea that they are Nietzscheans. They may say that I am unfairly classifying them.  But in stating that we have to destroy mentally challenged human beings, they bury themselves deep in the will to power ethic.  And, if they are going to be consistent in such an ideology, they must accept all of the precepts laid down by Nietzsche.  Basically, if the eugenicists want to be at their best philosophically, they need to be in the Nietzschean catalogue.  In fact, if we parsed it out, we could place them firmly there.  I'd be happy to have that conversation with them.

My first question for the nihilists who threw epithets at this defenseless child, would be, "where do we define human dignity, according to you?  At what point is the threshold?  Where is the line in the sand?"  Obviously, according to them, being mentally challenged is below the threshold of holding intrinsic worth as a human being, although, we might ask them to define human being; I'm not sure you can define a mentally challenged person as anything other than human. If we look to "science", we will be given a definition that will lead us to human being. Ultimately, a biological human can only be defined as a human being, and ought to be afforded the dignity of intrinsic worth.

What if, we decided, the eugenicists themselves were below the threshold, say, for being too short, or being too fat, or being too tall, or having the wrong color eyes, or wrong color skin, or wrong religion, etc.  Suddenly, the idea that justice is what is good for the stronger does not look so appealing. Suddenly, like lightening the natural law strikes at the heart; bursting onto the scene is the inevitable self-preservation.  Those who would define the human based on mental capacity, ought to be ready if they were ever the weaker, to accept the same conclusions.  The fact is, they never consider themselves the weaker.  These same haters are probably the first to shun racism or sexism (rightly so), but based on their eugenic principles they cannot define a proper threshold except that which those in power make it.  As such, do not shun sexism or racism if you like eugenics, because arguments can, and have been made for women or certain races to be less human.  Simply put, the principle of justice being what is good for the stronger, means hoping that you are always in the class of the stronger, which at bottom means you really don't trust your principles.

These folks, praising Hitler, are your neighbors; your godless neighbors; your nihilistic neighbors.  What they miss in their eugenics is that power is the outcome of justice; the political, military, and economic strength of the West has been the result of the recognition of human dignity. Our great inheritance from Greek philosophy, and upgraded to infinite levels through Christ, is that every human being has dignity.  That one idea has given rise to the idea of natural rights, to natural justice, to national democracy.  That one idea was a gift from heaven, a gift that Christianity gave to the socio-political world; a gift that the human dignity deniers use to defeat human dignity.  After all, their opinion wouldn't matter if we did not think human beings were willed for their own sake.  See the contradiction?  They affirm human dignity in one breath, and deny it in the other if they are held to their principles. Affirm it for themselves based on self-preservation, but deny it for others.  Seems like a check-mate, except that Nietzsche says that existence is contradiction.  So to be contradictory in statements is ok.  You can't argue with someone who denies non-contradiction, but you need to decide if you can live with the idea that there is no truth, that everything you argue for is simply a chimera in a cosmic game.  Do you have an opinion on something? Well, on Nietzsche's philosophy that is nothing but a mask for a will to power.  Can you live with the idea that all of your thoughts are meaningless, that opinions are meaningless, that arguing is meaningless?  Then you can be Nietzschean.  I would like to ask Nietzsche why arguments at all?  A biological process for survival?  Ok, then why do thought processes help us survive?  Why does reality correspond to our thought?  Perhaps truth is layered in reality?  Herr Nietzsche, why did you spend so much time arguing if they are pointless?  Ultimately, the question  we face is, truth or no?  Nietzsche or Aquinas?

Socrates does well in defeating the arguments of Thrasymachus and shows that, no matter outcomes, to be just means to do good to those under your power.  The just soul is the happy soul.  We need really to question the dominant thought process of our culture, which is a will to power relativism that leaves tyrants in charge of us.  The failed pagan ideas that we are reinventing in the guise of secularism, will of course destroy the good thing we've had going, where the rule of law reigned triumphant.  We will suffer through it, remake the bloody mistakes, come back to God, and then fade away again.  The slaves already rule the herd; the nihilists are everywhere in their anti-God psuedo-sophistication. We could hope these eugenicists return to reason, but to do so would mean returning to God. Unfortunately, to understand God's power, we have to experience His absence.  We are a sickly bunch.

The unexamined Life....

Socrates, in the apology he made before Athens prior to his sentence to death, made the claim that the unexamined life is a life that is not worth living. Born and raised in a culture enslaved by lower desires, I used to think it was particular to post-modern existence to be surrounded by non-inquirers and non seekers; to be surrounded by slave moralists pursuing death.  The words of Socrates, shine light on the fact that it is an entirely human condition to avoid thought to allow for perversion of the will. The classical philosophical tradition repeatedly and forcefully laments the sophistical and rhetorical relativism that accompanies every human epoch; it is easier to wallow in the mire than to think and challenge the lower desires.  Hence, why philosophers, priests, and saints tend to be the most hated of men.  They offer a very distinct challenge to run of the mill humanity.

Of course, if we are going to examine life, as Socrates bids, then we ought to ask whether the life of base pleasure is the truly human way of living.  We ought to ask if relativism, rhetoric, and sophism are the truth?

First, though, we must preface this.  You all know that I shun relativism and think it is a failed morality that leads to individual and ultimately corporate slavery for humanity.  The lust for power, domination, money, sex, are what deny peace to the human race.  With my perspective being apparent, and knowing who I think is the enemy, you can judge whether the opinion is adequately liberal, or detached from prejudice enough to be an honest seeking of the truth.  Having lived the existential lifestyle, my negativity towards it comes from having been a slave myself; indeed, we are all slaves in that we are fallen.

So why does relativism, the claim that there is no moral truth, draw so many into unwitting slavery?  There must be some truth in it if it draws our beings, as by nature (yes, I know, I use that ugly teleological word) we must see something as true and good in order to pursue it.  In modern philosophy, casuistry or situational ethics, has taken the day.  Following Descartes' methodical doubt, we have demanded clear and distinct, i.e. mathematical precision, even in ethics.  Ethics are contingent, they depend on an infinite number of circumstances, so to demand mathematically precise answers in moral situations amounts to demanding the impossible. Yet, Enlightenment philosophers tried to do so, and in so doing failed. Nietzsche, of course, said that meant morality had failed. 

For instance, Kant gave us the categorical imperative, which is "only will that which you can will to be a universal maxim," and this golden rule could govern every moral situation.  So, if I willed to steal my neighbors car because it was a nice vehicle, I have to ask myself "Can I will that anytime someone has a nice vehicle, I can steal it? Can this be a universal maxim?"  You cannot will it, on Kant's account, because it would be a contradiction.  I would say, "In my own personal situation, it is ok to steal the car, but in the universal situation, it is wrong to steal a car."  Thus, I would contradict myself.  Kant's maxim is applicable to any moral situation.  If you're in a life boat and its going to sink because of too many passengers, you let it sink. Why, outcomes do not matter and you cannot will to commit suicide nor can you will to kill anyone else as these would violate the categorical imperative.  Anyone with common sense looks at that and says, "that's insane and wrong."  What is the common sense that beckons us in this way (here's a hint: it's a cardinal virtue and their prince -- prudence)?

Similarly, a utilitarian like Mill, would have another one way to answer every ethical dilemma.  He would ask, what does the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people?  In the lifeboat situation, you kill someone as that would save the rest.  Utilitarianism is a dangerous relativism because it rules out nothing as per se evil.  So murder becomes ok if it benefits the largest amount of people. 

Of course, the classical tradition and Aristotle don't demand mathematical precision in ethics. They are wise enough to understand the contigent nature of ethics, and that for virtue to be realized a context is necessary.  So, in the life boat situation, the Aristotelian says, exercise prudence.  Are there women and children on the boat?  Is there someone who is willing to give his life for the sake of another?  Is there terminally ill or elderly who won't survive on the boat in the weather, etc.?  With Aristotle, there is a right course of action, a moral course of action, but it requires that you think.  And it is not mathematically precise, although neither is ethics.

The real draw of relativism, though, is its allowance of personal preference morality.  Essentially, justice, truth, virtue, is what you make it.  Being so drawn by our sexual instincts, and power seeking instincts, relativism gives us a free pass to do whatever we want, so long as it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others.  The question is, is such a view of the world correct?  It seems, since it draws so many people in, and tempering the passions is something that is often distasteful to us, (think of how hard it is cutting yourself off from that large piece of pie to lose weight,) it might be the case that simply satisfying the passions is the right way to live.  (Hume, Mill, Nietzsche and others would concur with this sentiment.) Indeed, if these are our "instincts," it follows that they may accord with our nature, and thus be right and true.

The first questions we should ask then, is, a) is pursuit of what the passions direct us to always the correct course of action? and b) is there good and evil?  If you look at question (a) and say with some emphasis "No way" you're on the path out of relativism.  If you look at question (b) and say, "there is definitely good and evil," you're on the path out of relativism. If you look at them both and say, "Passions always lead us in the right direction," and "There is only my good and my evil," then you are a relativist.  In the next post, I will finally examine the existence of evil, and we can all ruminate on if it is purely perspectival, or if there are really ontic (grounded in being) and moral evils.

In closing, I will simply ask, would it be right if we all sought to be children our whole lives?  If the draw of the passions, bereft of reason, is the right way for us to live, then we ought to all remain children.  Indeed, it would be better than to be less than that. It would be better to be swine.  Do we want to say that a pig is better off than a man?  The new pagan morality, while not outwardly stating such a thing, inwardly whispers to itself such a reality.  We are a culture worthy of swine.  A culture worthy of an unexamined life.

Moral neutrality...a preface to talk of evil.

In previous posts I have used the language of "moral neutrality," and a comment here is necessary on what I mean by that term. It ties in so fluidly with the classical definition of good and evil, that I thought I should explain the notion before ruminating on evil and whether it exists. Post modern thought, in succumbing to moral relativism, has failed to recognize evil, but I think we should question the idea that there is no moral evil. Indeed, we all recognize that there are crimes against justice; there is moral and even natural evil, but our shepherds have told us to shy away from such strong language because of our cultural (read Christian) perspective.

So what is moral neutrality? One of the greatest expositions of it was put forth by Montaigne in his famous essay "Of Cannibals." In a nutshell, this essay makes the claim that we only call things barbarism that are not familiar to our own cultural standards. So, when we accuse those who practice cannibalism from distant cultures of immorality, we are simply imposing our own cultural standards on a people that do not share those standards.  We must, and this is how the lie goes, accept differing cultural standards, even if they are in our perspective evil, simply because we make that judgment based on unfamiliarity with distant cultures.  If we saw it through the cannibals eyes, we would think it strange to not eat the bodies of our slain enemies.  It would be immoral not to do so. If you notice, though, there is a moral imperative behind the seemingly innocuous claim that we ought not judge cultures differing from our own.  We must not critique different cultures for being wrong, they are simply different.  In this line of thinking, it didn't take long for the truth silencers to silence those who accept that there is moral truth, simply by telling those who can see there is moral truth that they are "closed minded" for questioning differing cultures.  A very cute trick, and a nice, noble lie.

The gist of moral neutrality, then, is that we cannot exercise judgment on moral action because we are completely engrained in a perspective that may be false.  We have to stay out of the arena of judging action, because our cultural standards are simply that, self-made cultural standards without any objective morality behind them. (I'm hesitant to use the terminology "objective" as it brings in notions of categorical commands and Kant, which I think have no place in truly philosophical ethics.)

We can also see this moral neutrality at work in how our president refuses to use the terminology "terrorist" for Islamic radicals who are bent on killing innocents based on their "infidelity" to Islam.  "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," as the saying goes.  Whether or not a "terrorist" is a "freedom fighter" we would have to examine his specific actions and what he is fighting for. In the West, we judge them terrorists, and rightly so, as they specificially target innocent people and murder them in cold blood.  This is not the action of just war, or virtuous military action.  Terrorism is the right term.  Similarly, America acted as a "terrorist" with the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. It is immoral to target innocent people.

So moral neutrality is a false perspectivism, which on one hand claims there is no moral truth, but on the other, commands that we follow the morality that says there is no moral truth.

Of course, as my previous post attests, there is perspective in moral inquiry, and it does play a role in how we see moral truth (when we start discussing virtue theory, we'll expound upon how perspective plays a role in moral action). At the same time, there are the precepts of the natural law, which allow for cultural differentiation, but at the same time give us a means to critique actually immoral action.  In short, perpective plays a role in how we see the world, and there are legitimate cultural differences that should not be called immoral simply because they are different, but there is moral truth.  That is, there is perspective in moral inquiry, but there is also moral truth.  We live in a culture that goes to one of the two extremes, either there is no moral truth and only perspective, or there is no perspective and only moral truth. Both of these are false extremes.  (The former view is represented by our elites, and leftist politicians, the latter by misguided Kantian Christians and right-wing politicians.)

The greatest lies always start with a hint of the truth.  Moral neutrality is Enlightenment liberalisms greatest lie.  So what does all this have to do with evil?  In short, moral neutrality gives us no grounds for calling anything evil.  Yet, when a tragedy happens like the one that occured in Newtown, Connecticut, we all step back, as a world community, and say, "that is evil." We are such sick creatures that it takes the murder of innocent children for us to recognize there is moral truth.  I wonder what our shepherd relativists in academia, or our president, would say if we pushed them on whether this was evil?  I would guess they would probably admit it was, although their own philosophy disallows them to make that statement. After all, if there is no moral truth, this disturbed young man was simply acting on some perpectival good (on a side, this is precisely where classical philosophers would recognize there is evil, a perspectival good being realized, but a good that is not actually good. In other words, evil only exists in and of the good, so this murderer beheld an apparent good in his actions, but it was not a real good. This is the essence of moral evil. More on this later). "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," hard to imagine moral neutralists would hold to their morally neutral principles in the face of real evil.

This only serves to show that we are a Nietzchean culture. We have heard the term "cafeteria Catholic" in commenting on Catholics who pick and choose which principles of the Church they will follow based on their own wills. Well, the West is made up of "cafeteria moralists" with no principled approach to issues they take stands on, but only personal preference. Self-justification of my own will.  In a Nietzchean world where there is no truth, we, like Obama, can just pick and choose what we call moral or immoral based on situations and our personal preference. Although, the very principles of moral neutrality serve as a critique of simply choosing to say some individual action is evil, our non-contradiction deniers will tie themselves up in contradiction and continue to be impossible to argue with.  And they will get away with it because as a culture we have stopped philosophizing.

So, coming away from this post, I'm hoping my readers will have a better understanding of moral neutrality. It is the lie that we cannot make judgments about moral activity because the claim is there is no moral truth.  Our human nature, stamped into our very being, of course, detests this, and we can't help but call the murder of children evil.  That simple statement beckons to the idea that, even if we pretend there is no moral truth along with our academic shepherds, we inherently know that there is.  Discovering it becomes our biggest problem. Luckily, classical philosophy, namely Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, have given us a roadmap.  We'll follow that map in the coming posts.  Stay tuned for the inquiry into evil.