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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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by George J. Irbe
In The Time of Our Lives, Mortimer J. Adler makes the argument that the basic goods necessary for the Aristotelian 'good life' are the same for every man of every race and culture. In Adler's own words, in Section 5, Chapter 12 of the book: "... the value system involved in the scale of real goods that constitute a good human life is relative only to human nature, and not to societies and cultures... It is a universally applicable standard ..." Adler has thus provided us with an objective means that we can use with confidence -- facing unflinchingly the wrath of the Torquemadas of political correctness -- to rate and compare the beneficence and viability (or lack thereof) of one culture, society or civilization relative to others, as well as rating them in an absolute sense. As Adler assures us: "... we can judge human societies or cultures as good or bad, better or worse, in spite of all the injunctions against doing so delivered by the sociologists and cultural anthropologists." We can do this by looking at how easy or difficult it is for any individual member of that culture, society or civilization to attain the universally invariant norms of "a good life." We start with a definition of 'a good life,' also called 'happiness' and the 'totum bonum':
To the above one should add that the practice of moral and intellectual virtue in choosing the goods is also implicit in the pursuit of the Aristotelian good life or happiness. Common sense -- indeed, the very laws of nature -- tell us that no human being, while in possession of his normal mental faculties, would profess to deliberately seek the contraries of the real goods for a happy life -- illness, pain, poverty, enemies - and thus an unhappy life. We do know, however, that men can mistakenly choose and give priority in their life to apparent goods that are not goods at all or are harmful if over-indulged in, and neglect choosing the real goods. But no one could argue against the obvious by questioning the soundness of the advice that all men ought to seek, first and foremost, the real goods in right amounts that constitute the really good life, also called happiness, or the totum bonum. And there is hardly a person of sound mind to be found anywhere in the world who when specifically asked whether he would like to have the real goods, such as health, wealth, pleasure and friends, would answer "No." Adler acknowledges "the relevance of all the facts about individual and cultural differences that we either know as a matter of ordinary experience or have learned from investigations conducted by the behavioral scientists." Then Adler goes on to state:
The common denominator, then, for the 'general outlines of a good life' for people of different cultures and societies is this set of real goods common to all men. When Aristotle first acquainted men with what it is that they seek, i.e., happiness, he also explained that it was the ideal of perfection of all ideals of perfection, not really of this world. Like with other ideal perfections, e.g., truth, love, nobility, we can only hope to approach the perfect state of happiness asymptotically. Therefore, we understand that we can never expect to attain all the real goods to perfection, or the completely perfect good life, or the perfect state of happiness. But, the bothersome fact is that when we look at mankind across the globe, we see societies and cultures where, if we were to devise an index for measuring 'happiness' or the 'good life' among the population according to the standards set by Aristotle and espoused by Adler, indications of the good life would barely register at all in the population, and then only among a ruling elite. So the question naturally arises why that is so. Granted that in most of the unhappy societies much of the pervasive misery and the absence of the real goods that people need for a good life are caused by a malformed, or primitive, economic structure. But if we glance back in history a few hundred years, we see that subsistence-level economic conditions were the norm in almost every society and culture. The question then becomes: what other factors beside the purely economic factor, which itself may be dependent on the other factors, promote, or detract from, the pursuit of happiness in the general population; factors that account for unequal rates of progress in different civilizations and societies. Furthermore, there arises the secondary question whether these factors may also explain why one society succeeds in the invasion of another's domain and in establishing economic and social domination over the other -- known as colonialism. We can reason that any given individual in a society either has the awareness and appreciation of the critical importance of the real goods which he needs for a good life, or he does not. In the first instance, that individual will most likely try his best to live life according to the Aristotelian standards (although he may not be specifically aware of them as such). In the second instance, the individual will most likely achieve very little of the good life. However, human beings never cease to observe and to learn from others. Therefore, we can also reason that in cultures and societies which generally value the goods that are really good for man and encourage the acquisition of these goods by all its members, the numbers of individuals who are ignorant of the value of the real goods should be decreasing as a matter of course, to the point where, as is said, ignorance is no excuse. We can observe the very obvious and natural fact that a society in which the pursuit of the real goods necessary for the really good life is open to, and practiced by, the greatest numbers of individuals is also a society where a general consensus prevails on the paramountcy of the value of the real goods over other traditional cultural, religious or political beliefs held in that society. Simply put, we cannot help but note that the successful society or civilization is the one that values the freedom of the individual above all other values, whereas the society or civilization which values other things more than freedom is likely to be regressive or stagnant. Friedrich A. Hayek has given much thought to the cultural and societal evolution of man. Although Hayek has not subscribed specifically to Aristotelian ethics, we can incorporate some of his views on the evolution of society with ours. Hayek writes in his trilogy Law, Legislation and Liberty, in the Epilogue of Vol. 3, "The Political Order of a Free People":
Note (p. 163) that "Freedom was made possible by ... the discipline of civilization ...," and that freedom allows the individual to "... use his own knowledge for his own purposes." We can be bold and extend that thought to say that the evolution of the discipline of civilization (a characteristic of the successful civilization) has enabled the individual to use his own knowledge (e.g., of what constitutes a good life) for his own purposes (the main purpose being the pursuit of happiness). Perhaps there are cultures and societies still today which fear the open and free society and therefore find it (as on p. 164), "... most difficult to comprehend that the only common values of an open and free society were ... only common abstract rules of conduct ..." (here we can include the rules of conduct that lead to the good life, as recommended by Aristotle); "... that secured the constant maintenance ..." (by a government of laws, not men); "... of an equally abstract order which merely assured to the individual better prospects of achieving his individual ends ...'(the good life)'... but gave him no claims to particular things' (one is not to depend on government to provide the material wherewithal of a good life). All societies and cultures have traditions. Hayek says (p. 166) that traditions are not constant, but change through an evolutionary process of trial-and-error, where the old traditions give way to new ones, if the new prove to be superior to the old. That, after all, is the hallmark of a successful, viable society or civilization. One can read Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty for the details of his hypothesis on the evolutionary development of civilization which, according to Hayek, proceeded in tandem with the development of man's intellect. However, Hayek's analysis may be incomplete in that it takes the simple Darwinian approach which focuses only on the successful outcomes. Man's society is a rather different entity than a biological species. The demise of a culture or civilization that is no longer competitive in what it offers to its individual constituents is by no means a sure thing, as it is for a biological species that cannot adapt to environmental changes. An obsolescent culture can survive for a long time, albeit in relative misery, on the negative energy generated by the intransigence of its obsolete traditions. It is customary to blame all the ills of the so-called third world on their miserable economies and living standards. The developed nations are blamed for keeping the third world in economic bondage as bad as under the defunct colonial system. This is wrong thinking. In reality, the unhealthy economy is merely a symptom of the real causes for the enduring misery in a society. The traditions that inhibit access by individuals to the real goods necessary for a good life are generally some mix of cultural customs and practices, religion, and politics. Adler states in of The Time of Our Lives: "Consequently, it is highly probable that under certain societal or cultural conditions, it may be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for an individual to satisfy all his natural needs to attain, to the requisite degree, all the things that are really good for him as a human being." [Section 5, Chapter 12] Indeed, a headline in today's paper is fitting testimony to the problem. It reads: "Bad government to blame for plight of poor nations: UN." There is no hope for solving the problem of wide-spread unhappiness (the opposite of the good life) all over the world if we refuse to face and acknowledge the truth of things. We pretend that the problem lies were it does not; we are willing to bury the truth about things lest we offend somebody's tender ethno-cultural or religious sensitivities. But although it is very painful, at times, to acknowledge the truth, the blessings that come after the truth has been acknowledged make it all worthwhile. Adler must be thanked for recommending what we must be bold enough to do, even at the risk of stepping on our own and others' ethno-cultural tender spots, if we are to face the problem squarely. In his own words:
I will conclude by suggesting a reorganized structure for the United Nations General Assembly. This structure is rather inegalitarian but it provides a salutary incentive to the member nations to do better. First of all, the UN should devise a plan, according to Adler's standards, for periodic appraisal of all member nations. Member nations (and prospective new members) could be rated on a scale, say, from one to five, on the extent to which their social environment provides the necessities for the pursuit of happiness by the individual. The General Assembly should be divided into a lower and upper chamber. Member nations that score 3 or more on the 'happiness' scale would sit in the upper chamber, those with a lower rating would sit in the lower chamber. Resolutions passed by the lower chamber would also have to pass in the upper chamber to come into effect. Resolutions approved in the upper chamber by 66 percent of members cannot be challenged in the lower chamber; if upper chamber approval is by simple majority only, the resolution can be challenged in the lower chamber only if it is objected to by at least 66 percent of its members. Similar procedures can be established for UN financing and expenditures on the various programs that it runs. Finally, if the Security Council is retained as the executive body of the UN, seats in this Council should go only to member nations who rate a minimum of four on the 'happiness' appraisal scale. Veto power in the Security Council should belong only to members who rate a five. I wonder if a system of this kind could ever be adopted by the United Nations. Questions/Comments? Post them in The Radical Academy Forum Mr. Irbe's Website: Classical Liberal George E-mail Address: George J. Irbe |
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