Few topics divide our contemporary society more than morality. Accompanying this division is a paradoxical union of relativism, which states that there is no absolute moral truth, and constant moral posturing. The lack of a common framework to discuss moral questions is lamentable.
Furthermore, at the same time that our society's capacity for rational moral discussion declines, our technological power is rising exponentially. That means we can do more without the concomitant ability to discern whether what we do is good or bad. To paraphrase the character Malcom from Jurassic Park: "You were so busy thinking about whether you could that you never stopped to ask whether you should." With an increase in scientific knowledge and the associated technological capacity, a diminished capacity for moral clarity is a tremendous danger. We need a renewed understanding of what exactly morality is and how to engage in a process of moral reasoning.
This blog post will only reach a few people. But, just perhaps, it will help those few think more clearly about moral questions. In turn, maybe--just maybe--they, too, will help others think about moral questions. That alone would be an improvement on the situation. Thinking is almost entirely left out of the equation in most discussions.
Herein, I propose the approach of moral realism. With this, I mean, the idea that morality is connect to reality; it is part of the fabric of real truth. This post takes as its starting point the term-paper I wrote for my graduate level moral theology class on "The Ontology of Human Freedom" and adds to it some basic moral principles of Catholic theology and Thomistic ethics.
By now, many of you are probably wondering: "what the heck is "ontology?!" Also referred to as metaphysics, ontology is the study of being. Catholic moral theology holds that there is a connection between being/existence and nature/essence with morality. In other words, morality is real, not an illusory fabrication, and it is based on the very structure of human existence itself. It is bound up with the notion of human freedom, itself. Thus, we will discuss human existence and nature as a pre-cursor and pre-condition for a proper understanding of human freedom. (N.B.: I will use the term "man" here in the inclusive sense, like the German 'Mensch' or the Greek 'anthropos.')
First, man is a creature, a created being. As a creature, man has a Creator to whom he owes his being, his existence; man does not create himself. Thus, prior to his freedom, man is conditioned; without being consulted beforehand, man is placed within a world that he did not to create and is given a nature and an existence that he did not ask for.
Right from the start, then, it is clear that man is dependent upon the way things are, and it is only within this reality about which he has no say that man exercises his freedom. Included in this truth is the fact that man does not determine for himself what it means to be human. Man is bound, whether he likes it or not, by truth, especially by the truth of his own existence.
The truth about human nature, though, is a lofty one. Unlike the rest of creation we are capable--at least in potency and principle--of reason and choice, of knowledge and love, of intellect and will. This is what it means to be created in the image of God.
As such, this knowing and loving is precisely what man is made for. Achieving the purpose of one's being is where happiness resides, precisely because it is the perfection of something's nature to achieve the purpose of its nature. One cannot decide for oneself what will make one happy; it is built into one's very essence. Man's happiness lies in his knowing and loving. Man's intellect is ordered towards truth; his will is order towards goodness. In short, man's nature is designed for knowing the truth and loving the good. Ultimately, man is made for the knowledge and love of God, the supreme truth and the ultimate good. It is in knowing and loving God that man finds his perfect happiness. All other acts of knowing and loving only bring partial happiness insofar as they are conducive to this final end of man. Pope John Paul II attests to this truth when he says that "the moral life has an essential 'teleological' [goal-oriented] character, since it consists in the deliberate ordering of human acts to God, the supreme and ultimate end [telos] of man" (Veritatis Spendor, no. 73).
Thus begins our discussion of human freedom, which--as we have seen--has certain inherent limits or pre-conditions. It is only within this ontological, de facto framework that man exercises his freedom, which leads to very important implications about the meaning of the term 'freedom' itself.
There is a base level of 'freedom' that really is better termed 'voluntariness': the ability o choose between two contraries or to act one way versus another. I can have vanilla or I can have chocolate ice cream, or I can have swirl. I am 'free' to choose, to act voluntarily. That's a precondition to freedom in the fuller sense, but it is not the fuller and deeper sense of human freedom. In the full sense, one is only free insofar as one voluntarily chooses to act in accordance with truth and goodness, and particularly in accord with the truth about the good.
Fr. Servais Pinckaers provides a great example to help us understand the distinction between the merely voluntary and the truly free. He uses the example of a piano. "Of course anyone is free to bang out notes haphazardly on the piano, as the fancy strikes him. But that is a rudimentary, savage sort of freedom. It cloaks an incapacity to play even the simplest pieces accurately and well. On the other hand, the person who really possesses the art of playing the piano has acquired a new freedom. He can play whatever he chooses, and also compose new pieces. His musical freedom could be described as the gradually acquired ability to execute works of his choice with perfection. It is based on natural dispositions and a talent developed and stabilized by means of regular, progressive exercises, or properly speaking, a habitus" (The Sources of Christian Ethics, 355).
This analogy suggests an intrinsic connection between freedom and virtue, which is the ability to act well. Freedom, from this vantage point, is the capacity to live virtuously. It requires knowledge of moral goodness and a will strengthened by practice and aided by grace to choose to act according to the morally good.
Harkening back to the acknowledgment that man is not the creator, the following quote from Veritatis Splendor is illuminating: "Revelation teaches that the power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone. The man is certainly free, inasmuch as he can understand and accept God's commands . . . But his freedom is not unlimited: it must halt before 'the tree of knowledge of good and evil,' for it is called to accept the moral law given by God. In fact, human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfillment precisely in the acceptance of that law" (35).
To help our understanding, let us return to the piano analogy. The piano is designed in accordance with the laws of physics and acoustics. The lengths of the strings determine the wavelengths of the sound waves; the force of the striking of the strings, the thickness of the strings, all of these things and more contribute to the sound of the piano. One cannot just make a piano without corresponding to the truth about the physics of sound and acoustics. One likewise cannot just pound away at the keys and declare the sound beautiful. True mastery must correspond to fundamental truths. Similarly, moral mastery must likewise correspond to the laws of morality and natural law. We can't just declare that we want to play however we feel like and declare ourselves musical equals to the likes of Beethoven or Bach; likewise, we can't just declare moral relativism and claim no difference between sin and virtue, between vice and beatitude, between sinfulness and holiness, sanctity.
Sure, man acts voluntarily when he chooses to act, even in sin; the free man is the one who voluntarily chooses to act in accordance with the truth about the human good and enjoys doing so. The perfectly free man does so with ease.
Truth, then, is indispensable for human freedom. As Jesus says, "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). The more you know and understand the truth, the freer you are to make a rational, good judgment to be put into action. Some vague notion of "good intention" is not enough. We need to know the truth.
Another analogy might help. Let's say that there is a used car for sale. The price is set at $10,000. There's a mechanic and someone who knows nothing about cars who are both interested. Which one is more 'free' to make a wise decision about whether the vehicle is worth the price? The mechanic, of course! The well-informed person is the freer of the two. Likewise, in the moral realm, the more ethically educated person is the freer. Ignorance is not bliss; it does not make one free. If one wants to be truly happy, then one needs to seek out truth.
This moral view is not a banal 'freedom from constraint' but a vivacious 'freedom for excellence.' From the standpoint of some modern ethicists, law imposes rules upon us, thus seeking the limits of our freedom; law is seen as the antagonist to freedom. Liberation, then, comes from freeing oneself from the rules. In truth, however, law and freedom are intimately connected; they are not supposed to be enemies.
At least with respect to natural law and the eternal law (divine Law), law does not reduce or negate human freedom; it is the basis of human freedom. "God, who alone is good, knows perfectly what is good for man, and by virtue of his very love proposes this good to man in the commandments. God's law does not reduce, much less do away with human freedom; rather, it protects and promotes that freedom" (Veritatis Splendor, no. 35). The Ten Commandments are not the arbitrary laws of a cosmic dictator; they are the loving wisdom of a loving, heavenly Father.
This leads to another important point. One cannot be truly free if one remains ignorant. Therefore, it is a falsehood--and a grave one at that--to think that one can keep another person free by allowing them to persist in ignorance. If they are truly ignorant about the good, then they are incapacitated in relation to choosing the good, in which consists man's real freedom. You cannot let someone remain ignorant of the presence of poison in their food, let them eat it, and then act like you weren't complicit in their death, because you didn't want to impose your views on them. Likewise, we cannot remain silent about moral truths out of a false sense of respect for freedom. Don't confuse cowardice and a desire to avoid the backlash for proclaiming unpopular truths with 'love' and 'acceptance.' True love, as exhibited by Jesus on the Cross, is the willingness to suffer for doing the right thing by the hands of those who hate us, out of love for those same people. Loving someone means presenting them the truth and encouraging them towards the good, even if they hate you for it. That is Christian love.
In other words, happiness is found in fulfilling the purpose of one's nature: knowledge and love of truth and goodness. In the realm of morality, then, the truly free person is the saint: the one who knows the truth, loves the true, does the good, that is, enacts moral truth, enjoys doing the good, and abhors doing sin. True freedom comes from growth in virtue and beatitude in loving communion with God. Nothing else will suffice. Saintly freedom is the only real freedom, for it is the only freedom that corresponds to reality. The saint is the true man.
(In the next post, we will give an introduction into the various aspects of determining the moral goodness of an action, so that we can better put our freedom into concrete practice. Feel free to go to the donate post to help support my efforts.)
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