A friend of mine reported hearing once unmistakably from God. She had debated intensely and at length between two passions: to pursue a career in opera or to go to seminary and then into the ministry. Exhausted by the struggle, she heard, “It doesn’t make any difference.”
We have heard about Buridan’s ass, the donkey starving between two equally inviting bales of hay. We sometimes toss a coin to decide a contested issue. Though conventional ethics discusses right and wrong, more complex ethics uses more categories. Islamic ethics has five categories: the commanded, the permitted (or encouraged), the indifferent, the discouraged, and the forbidden. Western ethicists have long recognized “adiaphora,” alternatives that are so trivially different that it is a mistake to take time debating them.
The surprise in my friend’s case is that from an ordinary human perspective it would seem that the alternatives she was debating were significantly different. Hearing her story expanded my understanding of ethics.
I make sense of her story in the following way. Ethics often places disproportionate emphasis on what to do. But two other factors are important: that we supremely desire to do the right thing, and how we do it.
When my friend was told that it didn’t make any difference which of the two careers she chose, I think that the message may have been that she would be blessed—and would be a blessing—in either career. The important thing was how she went about it. Indeed, in this case that how was so much more important than which alternative to choose that she was released from the agony of the choice to the liberated pursuit of her career in seminary and beyond.
A few days ago I was tied up in knots about things; my blood pressure was too high; and I needed to place a high priority on reversing my habits of mind and body in the way I react to valuable agenda that I regard as urgent. Puzzling over the problem, I realized the 900 pound gorilla in the room: being too wrapped up in my philosophy of living project. Immediately I knew what I had to do—to place a higher important on how I conduct (for example) the current phase of getting the book ready than the importance I place on what needs to be done (which I tend to think of in terms of a vague schedule that needs to be met).
Immediately divine spirit flowed in with a beautiful how, a way that I could palpably feel. This beautiful how would enable me to conduct my work in a way consistent with poise, health, and peace. And the key to constant communion with this Way was to consecrate myself fully to this it and to trust that God would let me know when I need to refresh my openness to the constant spiritual renewing of my mind.
How we do something is more important than what we do. The what is very important. And the divine way to do those things is even more important.
The photo Coin Tossing was taken by Филип Романски.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Coin_tossing.JPG/640px-Coin_tossing.JPG
Forgive if this is too much of a technical question / comment. By my account of ethics your description is right on — that it focuses too heavily on ‘doing’. But would a project more steeped in virtue be another way of describing the project you are presenting? I was recently rereading the later chapters of After Virtue, where MacIntyre describes virtue as involved in social practices, and even more, where these practices are as he calls them internal so that their goals are excellences within these practices.
When I introduce virtue ethics to my students I offer a very basic and impoverished initial description: virtue is about being and not doing. When we cultivate our character toward excellences do you think that this would undermine the decision making process common to standard moral deliberation? To be sure, this might depend upon what virtues one takes up, but would an Aristotelian/Thomistic approach approximate what you are describing? I’ve been a critic of analytic ethics for a while now, especially when considering how to construct one’s own life and what being good means — or should mean — so this is no small matter for me.
By the way, I certainly hope you are feeling better!
Forgive if this is too much of a technical question / comment. By my account of ethics your description is right on — that it focuses too heavily on ‘doing’. But would a project more steeped in virtue be another way of describing the project you are presenting? I was recently rereading the later chapters of After Virtue, where MacIntyre describes virtue as involved in social practices, and even more, where these practices are as he calls them internal so that their goals are excellences within these practices.
When I introduce virtue ethics to my students I offer a very basic and impoverished initial description: virtue is about being and not doing. When we cultivate our character toward excellences do you think that this would undermine the decision making process common to standard moral deliberation? To be sure, this might depend upon what virtues one takes up, but would an Aristotelian/Thomistic approach approximate what you are describing? I’ve been a critic of analytic ethics for a while now, especially when considering how to construct one’s own life and what being good means — or should mean — so this is no small matter for me.
By the way, I certainly hope you are feeling better!
Sorry, but I was thinking about this a bit more and I wanted to chime in with another thought that will likely need critique. Of the many things I find problematic about analytic ethics, based so heavily as it is on logic, is that, just as you so nicely described above, works from the minutiae as well as from the negative, which is to say that it seeks the problems with propositions and assertions. I find this troubling since this mode of deliberation is something of a removal from life. What I mean is that such deliberation seems to me to be more about the argument than about the situation and the persons involved therein. The metaphor that I have been using since I was a young man is this: it is better to be a ball bouncing in the wrong direction than to not be moving at all. As long as I am moving I can always bounce back in the right direction. This is was I call living, and to do this mindfully toward a vision of excellence and beauty makes living an art — an art of living. This is another reason why I think that an aesthetics of living is more accurate than an ethics of living. Mind you, such a style of living would include the ethics, but with a heavy leaning on virtue.
I appreciate analytic philosophy for its emphasis on logical analysis; I appreciate other approaches to philosophy for complementary virtues. If the propositions we analyze contain inadequate concepts, then the analysis won’t help much; but if we inquire about the logic of concepts that are profound and rich, on the basis of a good (phenomenological) understanding of the relevant structures of experience, then the philosophy becomes more broadly interesting. When we see good analytic work done by someone who is working with fine concepts and a sensitive understanding of experience, it is a joy indeed!
I’m thrilled with your interest in the art of living and gratified to see that you acknowledge an ethical component in that art with a strong virtue ethics component in your ethics. I greatly look forward to your seeing my book, sketched in these blogposts from April through November, and how I weave these things together. In a nutshell, I speak of walking in beauty as a way to name the way of living with an aesthetic emphasis. The way of living I also call living the truth and living for the good of the whole; and I regard each phrasing with its particular emphasis as implying the other emphases as well. I find specific virtues connected to scientific living, philosophical living, spiritual living, living amid the beauties of nature, artistic living, morally active living, and living in a character dominated by love. The balance of these virtues constitutes an excellent character.
Sorry, but I was thinking about this a bit more and I wanted to chime in with another thought that will likely need critique. Of the many things I find problematic about analytic ethics, based so heavily as it is on logic, is that, just as you so nicely described above, works from the minutiae as well as from the negative, which is to say that it seeks the problems with propositions and assertions. I find this troubling since this mode of deliberation is something of a removal from life. What I mean is that such deliberation seems to me to be more about the argument than about the situation and the persons involved therein. The metaphor that I have been using since I was a young man is this: it is better to be a ball bouncing in the wrong direction than to not be moving at all. As long as I am moving I can always bounce back in the right direction. This is was I call living, and to do this mindfully toward a vision of excellence and beauty makes living an art — an art of living. This is another reason why I think that an aesthetics of living is more accurate than an ethics of living. Mind you, such a style of living would include the ethics, but with a heavy leaning on virtue.
I appreciate analytic philosophy for its emphasis on logical analysis; I appreciate other approaches to philosophy for complementary virtues. If the propositions we analyze contain inadequate concepts, then the analysis won’t help much; but if we inquire about the logic of concepts that are profound and rich, on the basis of a good (phenomenological) understanding of the relevant structures of experience, then the philosophy becomes more broadly interesting. When we see good analytic work done by someone who is working with fine concepts and a sensitive understanding of experience, it is a joy indeed!
I’m thrilled with your interest in the art of living and gratified to see that you acknowledge an ethical component in that art with a strong virtue ethics component in your ethics. I greatly look forward to your seeing my book, sketched in these blogposts from April through November, and how I weave these things together. In a nutshell, I speak of walking in beauty as a way to name the way of living with an aesthetic emphasis. The way of living I also call living the truth and living for the good of the whole; and I regard each phrasing with its particular emphasis as implying the other emphases as well. I find specific virtues connected to scientific living, philosophical living, spiritual living, living amid the beauties of nature, artistic living, morally active living, and living in a character dominated by love. The balance of these virtues constitutes an excellent character.
As I have proceeded through life, there have been many conflicts that I have had to confront, and eventually resolve. Some of the decisions that I made in resolving these conflicts have been life changing, and have set my life on an entirely different course than the one I was pursuing.
There have been two phases of the resolutions of conflicts in my life. The first phase occurred from about the age of six until I was about 35; the second phase began from the time I was 35 years until now. During the first phase, there were many conflicts, but they were resolved without any consciousness on my part of seeking a higher power to help me decide which choice carried the highest value. This phase was full of agony and anguish as I struggled trying to make the right decision without the guidance of God; the next phase was the resolution of conflicts with the active seeking of divine help to show me the highest value. This was the phase where I actively sought and continue to seek God’s will.
In this phase much of the anguish and worry of making difficult moral and spiritual choices was eliminated as I realize that I had sought God’s guidance. My faith instructed me that no matter how hard it seemed to the material mind, God was giving me instructions suitable for my level of growth, that God was in fact guiding me in making the higher choice. And it has been a real faith comfort to my soul to know that God is guiding and leading me, and as David Crocket said, “Be sure you are right and then go ahead.”
From these two experiences, I have l learned to always keep the doing of the Father’s will above all other values, that is to always subject my will to the Father’s will in seeking to make the decision with the highest value. Secondly I have learned that God’s will can be done in any recognized moral or ethical occupation, since there can not be any conflict between the two, one being spiritual and the other being material.
Dr. Perry
Sometimes biography is the clearest and most helpful way to make a point. If you just tell us to go to God, we may be able to sense something, but the story of the change in your experience of resolving personal conflicts really shows us the way.
As I have proceeded through life, there have been many conflicts that I have had to confront, and eventually resolve. Some of the decisions that I made in resolving these conflicts have been life changing, and have set my life on an entirely different course than the one I was pursuing.
There have been two phases of the resolutions of conflicts in my life. The first phase occurred from about the age of six until I was about 35; the second phase began from the time I was 35 years until now. During the first phase, there were many conflicts, but they were resolved without any consciousness on my part of seeking a higher power to help me decide which choice carried the highest value. This phase was full of agony and anguish as I struggled trying to make the right decision without the guidance of God; the next phase was the resolution of conflicts with the active seeking of divine help to show me the highest value. This was the phase where I actively sought and continue to seek God’s will.
In this phase much of the anguish and worry of making difficult moral and spiritual choices was eliminated as I realize that I had sought God’s guidance. My faith instructed me that no matter how hard it seemed to the material mind, God was giving me instructions suitable for my level of growth, that God was in fact guiding me in making the higher choice. And it has been a real faith comfort to my soul to know that God is guiding and leading me, and as David Crocket said, “Be sure you are right and then go ahead.”
From these two experiences, I have l learned to always keep the doing of the Father’s will above all other values, that is to always subject my will to the Father’s will in seeking to make the decision with the highest value. Secondly I have learned that God’s will can be done in any recognized moral or ethical occupation, since there can not be any conflict between the two, one being spiritual and the other being material.
Dr. Perry
Sometimes biography is the clearest and most helpful way to make a point. If you just tell us to go to God, we may be able to sense something, but the story of the change in your experience of resolving personal conflicts really shows us the way.