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The Mortimer J. Adler Archive |
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Index:
Though the ethics of common sense is both teleological and deontological, it is primarily teleological because the totum bonum as ultimate end is its first principle and the object of the one basic moral obligation -- the obligation to make a life that is really good as a whole. Every other good is a means to this end; every other moral obligation, either in regard to the goods one ought to seek for oneself or in regard to rights of others, derives from the one basic moral obligation that relates to the ultimate normative end of all our actions. In order to be both teleological and deontological, and, more than that, in order properly to subordinate the deontological to the teleological, deriving categorical oughts from the consideration of end and means, an ethics must (a) affirm the primacy of the good and (b) distinguish between real and apparent goods. That is why the ethics of Kant and of Mill only appear to be both, but under careful scrutiny are not. While Kant appears to be concerned with ends as well as duties, he makes duties -- or the right, not the good -- primary. And while Mill appears to be concerned with duties as well as with ends and means, his failure to recognize the distinction between real and apparent goods prevents him from making ends and means objects of categorical obligation. It would be impossible for organized society to do justice by securing, both positively and negatively, the fundamental right of all its members -- the right to the pursuit of happiness -- unless happiness were a common good, a totum bonum that is the same for all men. Let it be, as Kant and Mill conceive it, nothing but the satisfaction of conscious desires, whatever they may be, without regard to the distinction between real and apparent goods; the variety of goals that men would then pursue in the name of happiness, many of them bringing individuals into serious conflict with one another, could not constitute all together the common objective of a government's efforts to promote the general welfare. It would be under conflicting obligations that it could not discharge. Only if happiness is the same for all men, and involves them in the pursuit of real goods that are common goods, does the pursuit of happiness not bring individuals into conflict with one another, and make it possible for a government to secure, equally, for each and every one of them, their natural rights.
The main trouble with utilitarianism is not the principle of utility itself, for that must govern any moral thinking that is done in terms of ends and means. Any teleological ethics, such as that of common sense, is utilitarian or pragmatic in its employment of the principle of utility in appraising the goodness of means. The trouble with utilitarianism is that it is a teleological ethics with not one but two ultimate ends, and the two cannot be reconciled to each other or fused into a single overarching goal that can be the object of one primary moral obligation. By consulting the actual desires of men, Mill concludes that everyone seeks his own happiness. Let us waive for the moment the error of identifying the happiness made up of the things an individual happens to want with the happiness constituted by the real and common goods every man ought to seek. Still using happiness to signify the sum total of satisfactions experienced by the individual who gets whatever he wants for himself, Mill then tries to substitute the general happiness or the greatest good of the greatest number for individual happiness as the ultimate goal. Having first said, as a matter of fact, that each man desires his own happiness, conceived by him in terms of his own wants, Mill then shifts to saying that the ultimate standard or objective, in accordance with which the principle of utility should be applied, is "not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether." With regard to the individual's own happiness, Mill sees no need to argue for it as the ultimate end, since in fact all men do desire it. But when he comes to the "general happiness," Mill finds it impossible to say that, as a matter of fact, everyone desires this as his ultimate end. He considers the man who says to himself, "I feel that I am bound not to rob or murder, betray or steal, but why am I bound to promote the general happiness? If my own happiness lies in something else, why may I not give that the preference?" Does Mill have an answer to this question, a question that would be asked by anyone who regarded his own individual happiness as his ultimate end? Answer it Mill must try to do, since he has employed the fact that all men do desire their individual happiness for its own sake and for nothing beyond itself, in order to establish happiness as the ultimate end that men do seek. He cannot dismiss this question lightly. Coming from one of the world's most eminent logicians, the answer Mill gives is a model of sophistry. It runs as follows: "No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable [note: "desirable," not "desired"] except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness [note: "his own happiness" is what each person desires, not the "general happiness"]. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good [granted]; that each person's happiness is a good to that person [granted, and more, it is his ultimate good]; and the general happiness, therefore [does "therefore" signify a valid logical sequitur?] a good to the aggregate of persons." Not only is this plainly a non sequitur, as a matter of logic; it is also meaningless as a matter of fact, for even though an aggregate of persons may, as collectively organized, have a collective goal, it is not the object of their individual desires, nor can it be distributively identified with the diverse individual goals each seeks for himself. In addition to suffering from the serious defect of its failure to distinguish between natural needs and conscious desires, and between real and apparent goods, utilitarianism is fatally hung up by positing two ultimate ends. The teleological and utilitarian ethics of common sense has only one basic normative principle, only one ultimate end, and only one primary moral obligation; and precisely because that one end, the totum bonum which is the same for all men, is a common good, and not the greatest good for the greatest number, common sense is able to pass from the obligations an individual has in the conduct of his own life, aiming at happiness, to the obligations he has in his conduct toward others, who are also aiming at the same happiness he seeks for himself. The two ends that Mill fails properly to relate to one another can be properly related only when they are seen as, respectively, the ultimate end of the individual and the ultimate end of the state or political community. The ultimate end of the individual is only and always his own happiness (the totum bonum commune hominis). The ultimate end of the state or political community is the happiness of all its members--not the greatest good for the greatest number, but the general (or better, common) happiness that is the same for all men. Only the state can act for this end effectively and directly; the individual cannot. The individual is under the negative obligation not to interfere with or impair the pursuit of happiness by his fellow men; his only positive obligation toward them calls for conduct that indirectly promotes their pursuit of happiness by directly serving the good of the political community itself (the bonum commune communitatis), which is prerequisite to the state's functioning as a means to the "general happiness" -- the ultimate good of all its individual members. The happiness of the individual and the general happiness are both ends and both ultimate. This by itself creates no problem when their relationship is handled as Aristotle handled it. But Mill made an insoluble problem of it for himself by treating both ends as ultimate ends for one and the same agent--the individual. The ethics of common sense, unlike either the deontological ethics of Kant or the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill and some of his followers, is not an ethics that lays down rules of conduct by which a wide variety of particular acts can be judged good or bad, right or wrong; instead it is an ethics that judges particular acts mainly by reference to the moral quality of the habit or disposition that they manifest. Given a man of good moral character, one who is disposed to seek everything that is really good for himself and to choose what ever means serve this end, any act he performs in accordance with his character tends to be a good act. Such a man can act badly only by acting out of character or against his character, and if by repetition of such acts, his habit or disposition itself is changed, he can become a man of bad moral character and thereby fail to achieve what is really good for himself.
Unfortunately, the exponents of "situation ethics" in all its varieties, together with its critics, seem to be totally unaware that the ethics of common sense recognizes the remoteness from action of the universal principles that can be asserted with certitude and, it fills the gap between such principles and the exigencies of action by practical policies and prudent decisions that do not have universality and are not expressions of moral certitude. The doctrine offered by "situation ethics" is itself unsound, for it appeals to love and love alone, and worse, to a mode of love that transcends the bounds of human nature, in order to find some form of guidance for the individual in the particular case in which he must act one way or another. Not only is the doctrine offered by "situation ethics" totally unrealistic; it is, in addition, the solution of a problem that is factitious rather than genuine. It assumes that it is making a genuine contribution by finding a middle ground between the extremes of dogmatism and relativism in dealing with the problems of human life and action. It is totally ignorant of the fact that the middle ground already exists in the ethics of common sense. The problem that its point of departure is one that has been solved, and solved in a much sounder and more adequate way than by the one untenable proposal it advances. Fletcher's writings [ see Situation Ethics, by Joseph Fletcher] abound in such flashy falsehoods as "love is the only norm" or "love and justice are the same." The Institute for Philosophical Research has undertaken exhaustive critical studies of the major contributions to the discussion of both love and justice (see The Idea of Justice, by Otto Bird; The Idea of Love, by Robert Hazo), and on no recognizable conception of either love or justice can it be said that love and justice are the same. As for Fletcher's central thesis, that "nothing is prescribed except love" or that "love is the only norm," it is necessary to distinguish between human love (i.e., the kind of love of which man is capable as a psychobiological organism) and Divine love (i.e., the kind of love of which man is capable only when he is imbued with it by God's grace). Augustine's statement, "dilige et quod vis fac," which Fletcher quotes in support of his own position, may be true in moral theology, but it is false in moral philosophy. On the theological plane, and in the context of dogmas concerning God as a supernatural being, original sin, and Divine grace as the gift to man of the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity, it is true to say that the saints who, through God's grace, imitate Christ and obey his two precepts of charity, need no other norms or prescriptions in order to act rightly. They and they alone, loving with Divine love, can do as they please; or, in Fletcher's rendition of Augustine's maxim, what they will, they should do. On the philosophical plane, in the context of our knowledge of a man as a natural and finite being, with all the limitations and defects of an animal that is also rational, it is false to say no other guidance is needed for human conduct than the prescription that men should love their fellowmen. For one thing, human love, even when it reaches the highest degree of benevolence of which man is naturally capable, remains self-interested; for another, it extends only to a few among one's fellowmen, never to all with whom one is associated in the communal life of a populous society. The most serious error that Fletcher and his followers commit lies in their failure to recognize that ethics is not primarily or exclusively concerned with how men should behave toward their fellowmen, either through love or justice; it is primarily concerned with the problem of what the individual ought to do in order to make a good life for himself. Self-love may be relevant to this problem, but fraternal love and justice toward others are not. "Situation ethics," like the rigid ethics that its exponents criticize, makes the mistake of giving the right primacy over the good, or worse, of being concerned exclusively with the right -- with duties toward others. It is therefore inadequate and unsound as moral philosophy. If this criticism is met by the defense that it is not offered as moral philosophy, but as a "Christian ethics," or as a form of moral theology, then its exponents must be asked whether they subscribe to the theological dogmas concerning the existence of a supernatural being and concerning the supernatural, as contrasted with the secular, plane of human life, without which the basic tenets of "situation ethics" are either meaningless or false. Since the exponents of "situation ethics" are also exponents of the so-called "new" or "radical" theology that denies the existence of a supernatural being and any distinction between the secular and religious dimensions of human life, they undermine their own position.
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The Adler Archive Index |
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