Our Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor, Director of Catholic Studies, and Chair of Philosophy as Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI, was on the Acton Line podcast of the Acton Institute last year (but just let us know recently!). Give a listen here:
Reason, nature, and the human good – YouTube
What is the purpose of art? It is not a new question. To the contrary, it resides among the oldest of questions. Some may despair of a meaningful answer, given the ancient age of a question yet still be asked—and, at times, asked as though nothing said in the millennia before us has given satisfaction. Yet, that art has a purpose cannot be denied: for even the most-mysterious seeming of acts arises for the sake of some end, even if the act itself misses the mark by a wide margin.
To many, art seems to be primarily about communicating a message. In the past decade, the media through which art is transmitted and promoted has been painfully, dare I say cringe-inducingly, self-righteous and moralistic. In the words of Anastasia Berg, “For all its good intentions, art that tries to minister to its audience by showcasing moral aspirants and paragons or the abject victims of political oppression produces smug, tiresome works that are failures both as art and as agitprop.”[1] Such works—questionable as to which category is primary, that is, the art or the propaganda—may yet be lauded by the ideologues in support of their messages. But they are upheld as good works of art only by the most deluded.
To others, art may be purely about the “aesthetic experience”: by which is commonly meant works that somehow convey or evoke an emotional response at a perceptual level, a response that induces the audience to continue the experience. Thus, the work of art may be beautiful or hideous, joyful or tragic, but its purpose—so say such claimants—consists in the experience of the attraction. Notably, however, this attitude may result in works which require neither talent nor thought, but which have their whole being in provocation and stoking outrage. Such works, just as little as pieces of pure propaganda, seem to deserve the name “art”.
As Berg, again, writes, “Art must be for something—even if only for its own sake. For all their differences, everybody seems to agree that beautiful images have ‘value’—the question is merely what kind.” And, as she concludes:
If good art and its criticism can free us from anything, it can free us… from the comforting delusion that we can ever transcend our human limits, defeat death, unhappiness and evil once and for all, or live in anyone’s vision of heaven on earth. This does not mean, however, that we can ever be liberated from the infinite pull of beauty itself, or be able to attend to images only when we feel like it. It is rather like this: we can decide what to do, but we can never decide what to dream.
19 July 2023: [“On the Aesthetic Turn ” | The Point Magazine]
The “infinite pull of beauty”—as inescapable as dreaming: not always present to us, but something which comes whether we will it or not. Just as we are fascinated by dreams, so, too, we are by the beautiful—not only to perceive it but to create it. Yet is the purpose of art merely to free us from “comforting delusions”? Such liberation, I believe, is an indirect and necessarily concomitant resultance of what art truly does; but hardly its primary purpose, for such presupposes the prevalence of these delusions, a prevalence which itself contradicts human nature in a way that our love for and pursuit of art does not.
What then, can we say about art’s true purpose? Do we not need, first, to understand at least provisionally what art is? Can we identify its nature? Can we explain how someone creates it? Or how it is received? Do we know the work itself—the form that may make something even physically unexceptional into a vessel of beauty? What is the center—what is the final and orienting cause for art’s existence? Come join us this Wednesday (2 August 2023) for our Philosophical Happy Hour and discuss these important questions!
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Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.
[1] 19 July 2023: “On the Aesthetic Turn”, The Point Magazine [https://thepointmag.com/criticism/on-the-aesthetic-turn/]
Today’s Philosophical Happy Hour concerns the issue of “tolerance”. As Geoffrey Meadows, who will be leading the discussion, writes:
Tonight I thought we might discuss the definition, limit, and moral status of “tolerance,” since our discussion on kindness uncovered this underlying sensibility of our age.
Perhaps a series of guided questions can get us started thinking about it.
Is tolerance some kind of virtue? If so, under which cardinal virtue does it properly belong? Perhaps patience? If not, is it a vice and to what species of vice does it properly belong? Perhaps cowardice? Is it, in itself, morally neutral?
Some have attributed a kind of doctrine of tolerance to St. Thomas taking their cues from his treatise on law (e.g., I-II q. 96 a. 2). Essentially, they argue that since the civil authority must permit or endure certain harms or evils, the citizen must also permit them. We are brought by the above to the limit(s) of tolerance. Which evils and harms can be permitted? On what basis might governments and individuals make such judgments? Is it a matter for prudence alone?
Join us this evening (5:45—7:15pm ET) for a lively discussion about tolerance, intolerance, law, prudence, authority, and the moral good! It’s a small step in the right direction.
« »
Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.
Law: the word, to many, conjures images of the courtroom or a legislature—ponderous tomes of tediously-written jargon rendering a complex web of oft-arbitrary-seeming stipulations and impingements. So prevalent is this imagery that to speak of the “natural law” sounds often like a mere metaphor. Exacerbating this “metaphorical” tenor of the phrase has been its use in ideological battles. Sometimes it is made a shield against criticism; other times, a sword to cut down proposals. But again and again, as history well shows, return to the notion is made, and not coincidentally when threat is made to the coherence of “nature” as normative in human experience.
The revival of interest in natural law in our own time is certainly related to the devastations wrought by positivism and existentialism in the intellectual and political life of a considerable part of Western society, which it is generally agreed is undergoing rapid and radical transformations. By our own example, then, we realize how the theory of natural law may be influenced by the aspirations of a society, at a certain moment of its evolution, and how great is the danger for that theory of becoming nothing more than an expression of these aspirations.
Simon 1965: The Tradition of Natural Law: A Philosopher’s Reflections, 27.
Rather than capitulate theory of the natural law to these “aspirations of a society”, one ought instead to understand what that law is. Perhaps most poignantly, we need to understand how that law is known. How do we discover the first principles of the natural law? How do these principles inform our moral reasoning? Join us for this 8-week seminar, led by Dr. Matthew Minerd, to investigate these and other related questions. Deadline for registration is 5 July 2023.
| Discussion Sessions 11:00am ET (World times) | Study Topics & Readings |
|---|---|
| July 8 | Lecture 1: Problematizing the Natural Law Historical overview of the Natural Law; Gleanings from the history of natural law thinkers; lay of the land in some contemporary natural law debates. Readings: » Simon, chs. 1 and 2. |
| July 15 | Lecture 2: Theoretical Issues in the Background of Natural Law Discussions Discussion of various themes in the background when discussing the natural law: nature, freedom, reason, natural theology, action theory. Reading: » Simon, ch. 3. |
| July 22 | Lecture 3: Law in General: Its Nature, Division, and Properties Reading of Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of law in general. Closest attention will be given to the general definition of law and the particular divisions of law. Reading: » ST I-II, q. 90–92. » Simon, ch. 4. |
| July 29 | Lecture 4: Natural Law and Human Law Reading of Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of natural law and human law, the latter considered as a concretization of the natural law. Reading (same for weeks 4 and 5): » ST I-II, q. 93–97. » Simon, ch. 5. |
| August 5 | BREAK |
| August 12 | Lecture 5: Natural Law and Human Law (continued) Reading of Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of natural law and human law, the latter considered as a concretization of the natural law. Reading (same for weeks 4 and 5): » ST I-II, q. 93–97. » Simon, ch. 5. |
| August 19 | Lecture 6: The Noetics of the Natural Law Introduction to the critiques of practical reason needed for understanding how the natural law is known. (This will develop themes that we will have already encountered in Simon). Reading: » Minerd, Matthew K. “A Note on Synderesis, Moral Science, and Knowledge of the Natural Law.” Lex naturalis 5 (2020): 43–55. » Rhonheimer, Martin. “Practical Reason and the ‘Naturally Rational’: On the Doctrine of the Natural Law as a Principle of Praxis in Thomas Aquinas.” |
| August 26 | Lecture 7: Some Basic Discussion of New Natural Law and its Critics The NNLT has developed quite a bit in the past sixty years. It has many branches, more than we can cover in an introductory seminar. We will consider a terminus a quo in an important early article by Germain Grisez and a terminus ad quem in a recent critique by Steven Jensen. Readings: » Grisez, Germain G. “The First Principle of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the Summa Theologiae, 1-2, Question 94, Article 2.” Natural Law Forum 10 (1965): 168–201. » Jensen, Steven J. “The Fatal Flaw of New Natural Law Action Theory.” The Thomist 86, no. 4 (October 2022): 543–572. |
| September 2 | Lecture 8: Final Thoughts about the Natural Law Discussion of the place of Natural Law in Thomism. Some comments on the place of natural law in early Christianity and in Orthodox thought. Closing remarks on the importance / state of the natural law today Readings: » Harakas, Stanley. “Eastern Orthodox Perspectives on Natural Law.” Selected Papers from the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Christian Ethics (1977): 41-56. » Bourke, Vernon J. “Is Thomas Aquinas a Natural Law Ethicist?” The Monist 58, no. 1 (1974): 52–66. » Simon, ch. 6. |
Lyceum Institute seminar costs are structured on a principle of financial subsidiarity. There are three payment levels, priced according to likely levels of income. If you wish to take a seminar but cannot afford the suggested rate, it is acceptable to sign up at a less-expensive level. The idea is: pay what you can. Those who can pay more, should, so that those who cannot pay as much, need not. Lyceum Institute members receive a further discount (see here for details).
One payment covers all 8 weeks.
If you prefer an alternative payment method (i.e., not PayPal), use our contact form and state whether you prefer to pay as a Participant, Patron, or Benefactor, and an invoice will be emailed to you.
[2023 Summer] Moral Noetic – Public Participant
A payment level recommended for those who are currently students, who are between jobs, or who have part-time employment.
$60.00
[2023 Summer] Moral Noetic – Public Patron
Recommended for those in professions that do not pay as well as they ought and for whom continued education is especially important (including professors and clergy). Helps allow us to subsidize lower-cost registrations.
$135.00
[2023 Summer] Moral Noetic – Public Benefactor
Recommended for those with fulltime employment in well-paying professions and sufficient resources to provide a little more. Greatly aids us in allowing to subsidize lower-cost registrations.
$200.00
| Standard price | Basic Lyceum Enrollment | Advanced Lyceum Enrollment | Premium Lyceum Enrollment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Benefactor | $200 per seminar | $90 | 3 seminars included $90 after | 8 seminars included $90 after |
| Patron | $135 per seminar | $65 | 3 seminars included $65 after | 8 seminars included $65 after |
| Participant | $80 per seminar | $40 | 3 seminars included $40 after | 8 seminars included $40 after |
As soon as the soul arrives at self-consciousness, it is no longer merely the form, the end or even the principle of organization; a world opens within it that increasingly separates and detaches itself from the life of the body, and in which the soul has its own life, its own destiny, and its own end to accomplish. It is this superior life that the incessant progress of life and nature seems – without being able to attain it – to aspire, as if to its perfection, to its good. This higher life, in contrast, has its own good within itself; and it knows this, looks for it, embraces it, at once as its own good and as good itself, as absolute perfection. But pleasure and pain have their grounds in good and evil; they are the sensible signs of good and evil. Here, therefore, in this world of the soul, the truest good is accompanied by the truest form of sensibility; such are the passions of the soul – that is, feeling. Feeling is distinct from the spiritual and moral activity that pursues good and evil, though it gathers their impressions.
Continuity or repetition must therefore gradually weaken feeling, just as it weakens sensation; it gradually extinguishes pleasure and pain in feeling, as it does in sensation. Similarly, it changes into a need the very feeling that it destroys, making its absence more and more unbearable for the soul. At the same time, repetition or continuity makes moral activity easier and more assured. It develops within the soul not only the disposition, but also the inclination and the tendency to act, just as in the organs it develops the inclination for movement. In the end, it gradually brings the pleasure of action to replace the more transient pleasure of passive sensibility.
In this way, as habit destroys the passive emotions of pity, the helpful activity and the inner joys of charity develop more and more int he heart of the one who does good. In this way, love is augmented by its own expressions; in this way, it reanimates with its penetrating flame the impressions that have been extinguished, and at each instant reignites the exhausted sources of passion.
Ultimately, in the activity of the soul, as in that of movement, habit gradually transforms the will proper to action in an involuntary inclination. Mores and morality are formed in this manner. Virtue is first of all an effort and wearisome; it becomes something attractive and a pleasure only through practice, as a desire that forgets itself or that is unaware of itself, and gradually it draws near to the holiness of innocence. Such is the very secret of education: its art consists in attracting someone towards the good by action, thus fixing the inclination for it. In this way a second nature is formed.
Félix Ravaisson 1838: De l’habitude in the English translation by Clare Carlisle and Mark Sinclair, Of Habit, 67-69.
Félix Ravaisson (23 October 1813—1900 May 18) was a French philosopher influential in the latter half of the 19th century, particularly in the school of French Spiritualism and particularly as a “spiritual realist”. He exhibits in Of Habit, his most influential and enduring work, a familiarity with Aristotle and the Peripatetic tradition. He is also known for his influence on Henri Bergson, whose theory of the élan vital would likely not have been without Ravaisson.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918—2008 August 3) was a prolific author, primarily of fiction, whose account of suppression, corruption, and evil in the USSR’s prison system—the Gulag, through which uncountable millions were moved over the decades—exposed the deep rot at the core of socialist thinking. Here we present an excerpt from the first of three volumes, in which text Solzhenitsyn expresses how so massive an evil could be accomplished; namely, through ideology.
It is permissible to portray evildoers in a story for children, so as to keep the picture simple. But when the greater world literature of the past—Shakespeare, Schiller, Dickens—inflates and inflates images of evildoers of the blackest shades, it seems somewhat farcical and clumsy to our contemporary perception. The trouble lies in the way these classic evildoers are pictured. They recognize themselves as evildoers, and they know their souls are black. And they reason: “I cannot live unless I do evil. So I’ll set my father against my brother! I’ll drink the victim’s sufferings until I’m drunk with them!” Iago very precisely identifies his purposes and his motives as being black and born of hate.
But no; that’s not the way it is! To do evil a human being must first of all believe what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.
Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble—and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short ad a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.
Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.
Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions? Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago.
There was a rumor going the rounds between 1918 and 1920 that the [Petrograd and Odessa Cheka, the secret police organization which preceded the KGB—among others] did not shoot all those condemned to death but fed some of them alive to the animals in the city zoos. I do not know whether this is truth or calumny, or if there were any such cases, how many there were… How else could they get food for the zoos in those famine years? Take it away from the working class? Those enemies were going to die anyway, so why couldn’t their deaths support the zoo economy of the Republic and thereby assist our march into the future? Wasn’t it expedient?
That is the precise line the Shakespearean evildoer could not cross. But the evildoer with ideology does cross it, and his eyes remain dry and clear.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, i.1958–68: The Gulag Archipelago, 173-74.
Though we stand fifty years removed from the first publication of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, it seems the lessons have not yet been learned. Indeed, if anything, we seem even more ignorant. Human beings seek justification for their actions. This universal truth applies no less to evil actions. If anything, the evil action stands more obviously in want of justification. But an ideology—the more its doctrine abstracts from life, the better—can give justification to any act. Marxism and its derivatives, with their grand and sweeping historical narratives, sweep high above the facticity of real living. Believing in a system based upon such thinking, therefore, makes one especially prone to justifying unjustifiable acts.
This paradox—justifying the unjustifiable—requires a peculiar habit of mind. I will not dwell on this habit here (though it was discussed in this seminar). Suffice it only to say that appeal to vague or nebulously-defined causes as justification for any action merits suspicion of the actor. Such appeal demonstrates a readiness to do evil. I do not mean that evil follows inevitably. Indeed, the cause may even be a worthwhile one, only poorly understood. Nevertheless, we should be on the lookout for patterns of such appeal.
In short, the possession of an ideology—any belief in what ought to be irrespective of understanding what is—allows malefactors to perform the worst actions and yet maintain untroubled consciences. Look around at the world today, and ask: are we free of ideologies, today?
“What’s wrong with the world?” Countless thinkers have asked this question, especially over the past century-plus, and they have asked it over and over again; to the point that few in recent years seem to ask it any longer, even for the purpose of adopting the thinnest veneer of rhetorical posturing. No. Today, almost everyone seems pretty well-decided about what is wrong in the world. As such, their questions aim at means to rectifying those wrongs rather than at understanding what they are.
Taking such an aim ignores, however, that most hold only opinions about what is wrong, for very few hold any knowledge about what is right. Not knowing what is right—and by knowing is meant not merely “feeling” something to be right or wrong, but being able to articulate what causes the act or practice to be good or bad—we can only react to certain things as wrong. The reaction might be correct (that is, appropriate) or incorrect (inappropriate). Someone might react, for instance, with disgust at exposing children to sexually-suggestive performances. Someone else might laud this exposure. The former is correct; the latter, not. But if the former reaction cannot be explained, cannot be grounded in a causal explanation, it will have difficulty justifying itself in a world where the sense of the natural has been evaporated in a cultural confusion, in a culture which has grown increasingly separated from the ordination of nature itself.
To ask, then, “what is wrong with the world?” one will receive a myriad of answers based on feelings—some of which answers may be correct, others which may be incorrect; but the grounds for both will appear almost equally instable in efforts at communication. The only means of resolution, then—when confronted with the inevitable conflict between opposed reactions—becomes violent conflict. But such a resolution is, at best, temporary. New differences of reaction will arise, even under (perhaps especially under) the most totalitarian and authoritarian of regimes.
What then, are we to do? Where does the answer lie for our cultural conflicts? It lies, as suggested, in an understanding of the good (i.e., that in accordance with which a course of action is right). We can do no better than to begin by returning to Aristotle. We must rediscover his wisdom, and strive as best we can to understand the truths he reveals as they illuminate our struggles today. Chiefly, Aristotle teaches us the necessity of virtue. This rediscovery of virtue should not, as some would understand it, require a “strategic retreat” from the world. Rather, the rediscovery teaches us how to live in a world that might hate us for our virtues—and love us in spite of that hatred.
Last year, I read (among many of his works), Byung-Chul Han’s Disappearance of Rituals. At the very outset of the text, Han writes:
Rituals are symbolic acts. They represent, and pass on, the values and orders on which a community is based. They bring forth a community without communication; today, however, communication without community prevails.
2020: Disappearance of Rituals, 1.
Doubtless, we can observe the absence of ritual readily in the prevalence of communication without community. Such communication, arguably, fails even to be communication in truth. Indeed, Han here evokes the specter of paradox. There cannot be community without communication. A community coalesces around something common, which does not come into being without communication. But the exaggerated point remains valid: that distinct, particular acts of communication are not needed when there exist rituals which contain that commonality and communicate it to the community. Explicit linguistic communication finds itself required less when ritual has already established commonality.
Ritual requires definition, of course—and defense of such a definition exceeds the intent of this post. But succinctly, we might say that every ritual comprises an external habit. There may be private or internal elements as well, of course; but rituals are performed. As such, they concern a holding of oneself with respect to the world.
I believe it would do much good if we could see that good rituals result from virtue. Perhaps we can identify—causally—that the absence of true community constitutes something wrong with the world today. Perhaps, recovering virtue, we can recover true community.
What does it mean to be good as a human being? Modernity, all too often, has treated this as a problem to be solved. That is, we tend to view moral failings as simply in need of the right solution, the right education, the right program. Morality, however, is something that belongs to the individual. It is a matter of internal habit, not a matter of an external system.
What does it mean to be good as a human being? Modernity, all too often, has treated this as a problem to be solved. That is, we tend to view moral failings as simply in need of the right solution, the right education, the right program. Morality, however, is something that belongs to the individual. It is a matter of internal habit, not a matter of an external system.
Put in other words, we might say that the ethically-righteous course of action consists in how we hold ourselves. There is no checklist. There are no solutions. Actions of moral consequence are all unique, unrepeatable. No one is confronted with the same moral difficulty twice. In order to deal with them rightly, we must ourselves be good.
It is precisely this—being good—that Aristotle pursues in his Nicomachean Ethics. This great masterwork, which will be read in its entirety across this 8 week seminar, develops the concept of virtue (that is, in this context, human excellence) through understanding the characteristic activity which is proper to the human being. We will pursue Aristotle in this course with some supplemental readings, expository and provocative lectures, and weekly discussions.
The Aristotelian approach to the question of moral righteousness stands in contrast to many of the presuppositions of today. This seminar will challenge many of our preconceived notions about what it means to be good and how this is achieved.
This is an introductory seminar. View the syllabus here and learn more about Lyceum Institute seminars here. Participants will be challenged but need no prior experience. Participants are required to use a copy of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Preferred translations: Bartlett and Collins or Joe Sachs.
| Discussion Sessions 10:15am ET (World times) | Study Topics & Readings |
|---|---|
| January 14 | Week 1: Happiness and the Good Lecture: The Work of a Human Being Readings: » Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1. |
| January 21 | Week 2: The Nature of Virtue Lecture: Action and Affection Reading: » Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2—Book 3, c.5. » “On Moral Philosophy”, Yves Simon. |
| January 28 | Week 3: The Moral Virtues Lecture: Moral Greatness Reading: » Nicomachean Ethics, Book 3, c.6—Book 4. » “The Virtue of Courage”, R.E. Houser. » “The Virtue of Temperance”, Diana Fritz Cates. |
| February 4 | Week 4: Justice Lecture: Due Proportionality Reading: » Nicomachean Ethics, Book 5. » “The Virtue of Justice”, Jean Porter. |
| February 11 | BREAK |
| February 18 | Week 5: Intellectual Virtue Lecture: Prudence and the Unity of Virtue Reading: » Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6. » “The Intellectual Virtues”, Gregory M. Reichberg. » “The Virtue of Prudence”, James F. Keenan, S.J. |
| February 25 | Week 6: The Struggle for Virtue Lecture: Striving for a Coherent Life Reading: » Nicomachean Ethics, Book 7. |
| March 4 | Week 7: The Good of Friendship Lecture: Hierarchy of Friendships Readings: » Nicomachean Ethics, Book 8—Book 9, c.6. |
| March 11 | Week 8: The Hierarchy of Happiness Lecture: Unitive Goods of Human Life Readings » Nicomachean Ethics, Book 9, c.7—Book 10. |
Lyceum Institute seminar costs are structured on a principle of financial subsidiarity. There are three payment levels, priced according to likely levels of income. If you wish to take a seminar but cannot afford the suggested rate, it is acceptable to sign up at a less-expensive level. The idea is: pay what you can. Those who can pay more, should, so that those who cannot pay as much, need not. Lyceum Institute members receive a further discount (see here for details).
One payment covers all 8 weeks.
[2023W] Ethics: Virtue – Benefactor
Recommended for those with fulltime employment in well-paying professions and sufficient resources to provide a little more.
$200.00
[2023W] Ethics: Virtue – Patron
Recommended for those in professions that do not pay as well as they ought and for whom continued education is especially important (including professors and clergy).
$135.00
[2023W] Ethics: Virtue – Participant
Recommended for those who are currently students or with part-time employment.
$60.00
Musings derived from recent Lyceum Institute conversations concerning language.
It is an oft-stated distinction, and with good cause, that “freedom” may be said in two ways: either a kind of negative freedom, that is, a freedom belonging to self-determining agents in the absence of restraint (“freedom from”); or a kind of positive freedom, namely, the absence of prohibitions against freely engaging in pursuit of the good (“freedom for”). But I believe that, however related these two senses might be, we are not saying them analogically, but equivocally—and ought, therefore, to stop misusing the singular term “freedom” for both meanings. The negative sense, in other words, does not pertain to the agent who possesses freedom. Rather, it refers to a relational state which may be either imagined or real. It is real inasmuch as it refers to a societal pattern of relations whereby human agents are able to make certain decisions without state compulsion. The state, as a cognition-dependent entity, must itself be in conformity with the good of human nature in order that the state is just. The negative “freedom” is imagined, however, inasmuch as it is thought to obtain independently of any state of society; as though it is a given of nature, despite no resolution to natural realities.
In other words, you, your friends, your family, everyone you have ever known—and likewise for myself—are quite thoroughly constrained in terms of the decisions you can or cannot make, and most certainly by the consequences of them. The world resists our efforts much more than it accedes to them; it is we who must adapt to the world in order that we thrive, and not the other way around.
By contrast, the real negative “freedom” consists in nothing other than that pattern of relations through which the state abstains from compulsion being a just and righteous pattern: one that recognizes a kind of subsidiarity of governance. In other words, negative “freedom” consists in little more than recognizing that decisions ought to be made at the lowest possible level of prudential determination. This, of course, does not constitute an absolute principle. At times, local governing entities cannot be trusted to make the right decisions, and intervention of a higher authority is required. But the exercise of this authority ought to be temporary, and decision-making remanded as soon as possible.
But this non-intervention of higher authority does not mean constraint is wrong. Rather, it indicates that the flourishing of human beings requires good and right use of the individual faculty of the will. Such contributes not only to the flourishing of the individual, that is, but the community. Compel me to pick up trash and not only will I likely become resentful, but seek to do the bare minimum. On the other hand, if I care for the beauty of my community and begin to collect the trash myself, I may even help move others to act likewise. Yet if I demonstrate not only a lack of care for my environment, but an active hostility toward it, what is the government to do? Something, of course, that is compulsive, that does constrain my actions. The government has a responsibility not to determine what is good for me, but to support conditions in which the good can flourish. I cannot be “free” if I am a slave to laziness. The government cannot make me be industrious; but it can support structures—built and operated with the principle of subsidiarity in mind—which both encourage virtue and dissuade vice.
Positive “freedom”, on the other hand—which belongs to the agent—likewise exists only under a certain constraint. That I act freely requires that I act for something. Human freedom of choice follows understanding, always. The degree to which I am free, therefore, follows the depth of my understanding. Other attributes of my being—habits and particularly those inclining to vice—may intrude upon and hamper the relationship between my understanding and my will. I know well, for instance, that the yogurt and salad are the truly good option (given my weight, height, general health, etc.), but the bacon cheeseburger has a hold on me, somehow, and I choose poorly. Of course, this “freedom for” also requires that I be able to choose the unhealthy option because it does have a genuine good, and, at rare times, is in fact the better choice to make. That is, the correctness of the choice follows the purpose for which one eats. Yogurt and a salad make for a poor celebratory meal, and, if celebrating something worthy, one ought to celebrate well. Conversely, if we see someone whom we know regularly eating naught but the unhealthiest of foods, we ought to remonstrate that person.
These constraints follow one’s knowledge. If you see someone eating unhealthy food once, giving chastisement is unwarranted. If you see someone you do not know eating unhealthy food—even if you observe such frequently—you are unwise to say anything. The individual in question may be choosing poorly, but we lack the requisite knowledge of the person. But so, too, should there exist a society in which the knowledge and habits about eating well are common and well-supported by communities at every level. The ends that are fulfilling for human beings should be known, and the means to pursue them encouraged so that they may be freely and creatively pursued. (The relation between “free” and “creative” is a topic to be explored another time.) Correlatively, the ends that are not fulfilling should be discouraged, and societal practices which instead encourage vice should be prohibited.
These considerations include the “freedom of speech”, much discussed in recent years. It cannot rightly be an absolute “freedom from”. Whatever societal, governmental non-intervention surrounds our speech, it relies entirely upon a sense of purpose for speech. If speech becomes divorced from truth, the freedom of speech becomes, swiftly, a nightmare of contradictions. Yet, it must be asked: do we know the truth well enough to determine what ought to be said, and when, and how? We know the health values of food—a narrow subject—far better than we know many issues of moral and political discord. Nevertheless, just as we can tell someone we know well that he should not continue eating unhealthy foods if we observe him so doing, so too we may admonish against excesses in humor—and, more strongly, against those claims and statements which undermine the very good of human nature itself.
There are some important rhetorical considerations to develop, here. Perhaps a seminar on the “Ethics of Terminology” or “Communication Ethics” will be offered in the future.
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, styled by certain parties as the “Sacred Monster of Thomism,” taught at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the “Angelicum”) in Rome for a long career of over fifty years. Although he is normally understood to be a conservative Roman theologian of his period, an honest assessment of his work shows that, while being integrated deeply into the Dominican schola Thomae, he was an active thinker, synthesizing, with a particular strength in pedagogy, Thomistic thought on many topics in theology and philosophy. This seminar will primarily consider his philosophical thought, tracing his treatment of topics pertaining to the philosophy of knowledge, metaphysics, moral philosophy, politics, with a bit of logic as well; it will end with a consideration of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s presentation of the boundaries between faith and reason. Throughout the seminar, emphasis will be placed on his organic connection with the Thomistic tradition as well as with the ongoing development of Thomistic thought in the many figures he influenced over the course of years of teaching and writing.
To our day, the greatest philosophers, in agreement with natural reason, have said, “Becoming is not self-explanatory. It cannot exist by itself. It is not related to reality or to being as A is to A, as white is to white, as light is to light, and as spirit is to spirit.” First of all, it requires a subject. Movement is always the movement of something—of water, air, or the ether. Movement in general does not exist as such. Only this movement exists. It is only this movement or this becoming because it is the movement of this subject, of this mobile thing. No dream without a dreamer, no flight without that which flies, no outflow without a liquid, no flow without a fluid (no matter how subtle and small it might be). No thought without a mind, and if a mind is not, like God, Thought Itself and Truth Itself Ever Actually Known ab aeterno, it is distinct from its thinking and from its thoughts, which vary and are concerned with various objects while it remains one and the same (i.e., the same substantial being under the multiple and changing phenomena). And this imperfect mind cannot know without the concurrence of Him who is Thought Itself, Truth Itself, and Life Itself, He who is more intimately present to us than we ourselves are to ourselves, all the while being really and essentially distinct from us.
Garrigou-Lagrange, The Order of Things: The Realism of the Principle of Finality, 72.
Lyceum Institute seminar costs are structured on a principle of financial subsidiarity. There are three payment levels, priced according to likely levels of income. If you wish to take a seminar but cannot afford the suggested rate, it is acceptable to sign up at a less-expensive level. The idea is: pay what you can. Those who can pay more, should, so that those who cannot pay as much, need not. Lyceum Institute members receive a further discount (see here for details).
One payment covers all 8 weeks.
DISCUSSIONS:
July 2—27 August
Saturdays, 9:00-10:00am ET /
1:00-2:00pm UTC
WHERE:
Lyceum Institute digital platform run on Microsoft Teams
In this seminar, lasting 8 weeks (with a break at the halfway point—see here for more information on all Lyceum Institute seminars), we will discover the profound insights of Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, a thinker of great subtly and wisdom. The instructor for this seminar is Dr. Matthew Minerd, Professor of Philosophy and Moral theology at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Pittsburgh, PA and Faculty Fellow of the Lyceum Institute. You can read more about Dr. Minerd here.
[2022Su-B] Philosophizing in Faith – Participant
Recommended for those who are currently students or with part-time employment.
$80.00
[2022Su-B] Philosophizing in Faith – Patron
Recommended for those in professions that do not pay as well as they ought and for whom continued education is especially important (including professors and clergy).
$135.00
[2022Su-B] Philosophizing in Faith – Benefactor
Recommended for those with fulltime employment in well-paying professions and sufficient resources to provide a little more in support of the Lyceum Institute and its mission.
$200.00
