The Donkey
G.K. Chesterton
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Palms Before My Feet
Friday, April 15, 2011
A Quodlibetal Question on Lying
Whether it is always wrong on Catholic principles to speak falsely with the intent to deceive
It seems that it is not:
(1) For we find in Scripture a number of stories in which people are held up as heroes and models but who spoke falsely in order to deceive. For instance, the midwives in Exodus 1 did so in order to save Hebrew children, and God dealt well with them, and thus seems to have rewarded them, because it was an act of compassion. Further, Rahab did so about the spies (Josh. 2:5) and for this was spared; and this seems to have been an act of faith. Further, Judith also did so (Jud. 10:12-13), and this seems to have been an act of fortitude. Further, Jehu pretended to worship Baal in order to destroy Baal's prophets, and this seems to have required speaking falsely in order to deceive, but he was praised for it, because it was an act of zeal for God.
(2) Moreover, certain of the Fathers and saints seem to countenance deception in certain cases. Thus St. John Cassian, in the Seventeenth Conference,says (17.20), "We may rightly and pardonably acquiesce in the wrong of a lie, when, as we said, a greater harm depends on telling the truth, and when the good which results to us from speaking the truth cannot counterbalance the harm which will be caused by it." Likewise, St. John Chrysostom, in the first book On Priesthood, says, that a deception "becomes good or bad according to the intention of those who practise it." Further, many Fathers praised Peter and Paul for deception over the matters of the Judaizers. Further, Bl. John Henry Newman in an appendix to the Apologia says that there are many schools of opinion on the subject of lying, and one is free to follow any of them. And he concludes, "For myself, I can fancy myself thinking it was allowable in extreme cases for me to lie, but never to equivocate."
(3) Moreover, intuitively it seems that one should sometimes speak falsely in order to deceive; for if a murderer were at the door demanding to know where someone was, it would seem that he should not be told the truth but sent away by deception. Further, people undercover or in a war often speak falsely in order to deceive, and it would seem that they are not to be blamed for this, because by doing so they protect themselves and many others. Moreover, it is harmful to speak falsely with the intent to deceive in the sense that it violates the rights of others to know the truth and thus not to be harmed by being deceived. However, this right only exists where they are actually harmed by the deception. Therefore it is not always wrong to speak falsely with the intent to deceive.
But, contrariwise:
(1) We are commanded by the Apostle (Eph 4:24) to "put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth"; and he explains the result of this in the following verse, "Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, for we are members one of another." Further, we are told by the Decalogue not to bear false witness; but, as Augustine says (De mend. 6), "whoso utters any thing bears witness to his own mind," and it is because of this reasoning that lying in general has usually been considered as barred by this precept. But if this is so, to speak falsely with the intent to deceive is always lying; for it is always bearing witness so as to harm one's neighbor with deception. Further, Leviticus says (19:1), "You shall not lie; neither shall anyone deceive his neighbor"; but this is most naturally understood as forbidding that speaking of false things with the intention to deceive. Further, the Psalmist says of the wicked (Ps. 52:5), "You love evil rather than good, lies rather than honest speech." But lies, which are placed on the side of evil, are contrasted with honest speech; and in honest speech one speaks as truly as one can. Further, we read in Proverbs 8:7, "My mouth recounts truth but my lips abhor wickedness; sincere are all the words of my mouth, not one of them is wily or crooked"; but this implies that it is wicked to speak insincerely, for one's words to be crooked, and in this way not to recount truth. Therefore it implies that it is always wrong to speak falsely with the intent of deceiving. And this is confirmed elsewhere in Proverbs, as when it says (Pr. 12:19), "Truthful lips endure forever, the lying tongue, for only a moment," and (12:22) "Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who are truthful are his delight." Further, in listing sins at one point, Isaiah says (Is. 59), "Your lips speak falsehood, and your tongue utters deceit," and, later, considering offenses against God, "uttering words of falsehood the heart has conceived". Further, we are told (Mt. 7:12), "Do to others what you would have them do to you," but no one wants to be told false things in the expectation that one will be deceived.
(2) Moreover, St. Augustine says (De mend. 5), "no one doubts that it is a lie when a person willingly utters a falsehood for the purpose of deceiving: wherefore a false utterance put forth with will to deceive is manifestly a lie." And this is overwhelmingly the view of the many saints who have commented at length on this question. So, for instance, St. Thomas Aquinas says (ST 2-2.110.3), "as words are naturally signs of intellectual acts, it is unnatural and undue for anyone to signify by words something that is not in his mind." Thus also Bl. John Duns Scotus says (Ord. III suppl. dist 38), "all commonly hold that a lie is a sin," and there it is clear that a lie is understood to be speaking falsely with the intent to deceive; and later he argues that to utter words, knowing the opposite to be the case, and thus with the intention to deceive, is always a sin. The list of saints who have both seriously considered this matter and concluded that speaking falsely with the intention to deceive is always wrong could be extended greatly. Further, Gaudium et Spes says (24), "Man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself." Thus one ought to give oneself sincerely, and this is a virtue. But in speaking falsely in order to deceive one not only does not give oneself sincerely, one does the direct opposite. But an act that directly opposes a virtue is a sin.
(3) Moreover, it is wrong to impede a rational ability naturally ordered to the communication of truth; but reason, insofar as it expresses itself in speech, is naturally ordered to the communication of truth.
I first make the distinction that verbal acts capable of deceiving because what is said is false come in at least two forms. We may distinguish first those capable of deceiving by claim from those capable of deceiving by promise, as when one promises something and then one breaks one's promise. Only the former is in view here. Further, it is only instances of actually speaking falsely that is in view here, and not withholding of information, or putting it in esoteric form, or the like. Further, speaking falsely is a matter of discernible meaning, and not of merely one way of taking the word; so that pleasantries, whose meaning everyone knows to consist in acknowledgement regardless of the precise thing said, are not in view, either. And many kinds of jokes may be put in this category as well; as Augustine says (De mend. 2), "Setting aside, therefore, jokes, which have never been accounted lies, seeing they bear with them in the tone of voice, and in the very mood of the joker a most evident indication that he means no deceit, although the thing he utters be not true."
And I respond that deliberately speaking falsely with the intention to deceive is a sin against oneself, against one's neighbor, and against God. I take these in turn.
(1) One may consider sins against oneself in light of what order they violate and in light of what good they impede by violating that order. Human reason has truth as its natural end; and therefore any act of reason that is wholly contrary to truth is an act that is intrinsically disordered, and thus a sin against oneself as a rational creature. But speech is a rational act. Thus to speak falsely in order to deceive is intrinsically disordered, because it is contrary to truth both as to its object (for its object is to speak falsely) and as to its intended end (for its intended end is that another will believe what is false). But if an act is contrary to the end both as to its object and as to its intended end, it is wholly contrary to that end.
On the second point, the human life as ordered to truth manifests the goodness of God, who is supremely Truth, and to manifest the goodness of God is a great good of human life. Thus to act in a way that is not ordered to truth impedes the great good of manifesting God's goodness as Truth. But never will there be any good that can be obtained from speaking falsely with the intention to deceive that is equal to this great good of manifesting God's goodness. Thus speaking falsely with the intent of deceiving is to prefer a lesser good for oneself over a much greater good for oneself.
(2) To speak falsely with the intent to deceive is a sin against one's neighbor, in terms of both human dignity and social life. A virtue is said to be ancillary to, or a potential part of, justice, through having something in common with justice, even though in some way it does not have some detail of the definition of justice. These potential parts of justice, while not justice in the strict sense, can be considered justice in a broader sense. The virtue of truthfulness, by which human life is made excellent through the disposition to be truthful, has two things in common with justice. First, it is directed to another as a sort of exchange; that is, the truthful person communicates truth to others. Second, it requires that there be a sort of equality, so that what one says is truly equivalent to what one knows or believes, and is not counterfeit. It differs from justice, however, in that it does not consider a legal debt but a moral debt. Legal debts in strict sense arise from the exchange itself, so that one must pay them in full or be unjust, and if one has paid them in full one is released from obligation; although there are legal debts in a broader sense, such as the debt to one's parents considered by the virtue of filial piety, in which one cannot pay them in full, and thus the necessity they impose is not to pay the debt in full but continually to render what is owed, to one's ability. Truthfulness does not consider a legal debt of either sort, because no one is always owed the truth; for instance, sometimes it is good to withhold the truth. But there is a sort of moral debt that involves respect for true good, and receives a certain obligatoriness from a more general obligation. Truthfulness considers such a moral debt, for one owes it to one's neighbor to be a truthful person, out of respect for them and for common good.
(a) Out of respect for the person: because they are rational, they are ordered to truth and find their good in truth. Therefore one owes one's neighbor, in a sort of general way, the good of truth, and protection from its opposite, when one can give it.
(b) Out of respect for common good: Since human beings, being rational, are social, we naturally owe each other what is necessary for preserving human society. But human society depends on the ability of people to trust what other people say. To speak falsely with the intent to deceive is not conducive to such trustworthiness, and, indeed, is wholly opposed to it, since it is opposed to it both as to object (which is to speak falsely) and as to intended end (which is to deceive). Thus it is a sin against one's neighbor.
However, because truthfulness renders what is owed in a moral way rather than a legal way, it is possible for the severity of one's sin to be greater or lesser depending on what goods one has in view when speaking falsely. Thus, for instance, speaking falsely to save someone from harm in some way is a much less serious offense against one's neighbor than speaking falsely in order simply to have fun, and both are much less serious than speaking falsely in order to cause harm to many. This is because in the former cases the intending of the good considered is by its very nature less opposed to the good of one's neighbor.
(3) To speak falsely with the intent of deceiving is a sin against God. For God is Truth, and all things that are true have a relation to God as Truth. Thus by speaking falsely with the intent to deceive one turns away from God, who is Truth, and this is a sin against Him. Thus Bl. Antonio Rosmini says (Consc. 606), "Truth and goodness therefore must be loved even to the extent of avoiding all danger of acting against them," because, as he says, truth and goodness are God's appurtenances. And he follows this by saying, "We should therefore always be on the side of truth and goodness because these are essentially moral objects and everything opposed to them is intrinsic, formal evil. This is the principle governing all that St. Augustine and other theologians say against lying as opposed to truth." However, it is also true that not all truths are equally related to the First Truth, and thus it follows that not every case of speaking falsely with the intent to deceive is equally severe; further, not everyone has equal cognizance of the relation of truth to God as First Truth, and for this reason as well not every case is equally severe.
From the arguments given above I conclude that to speak falsely with the intention to deceive is wrong, and is primarily wrong as a sin against oneself, and in particular is so because it is, as St. Thomas says, unnatural in such a way as to be inconsistent with one's own moral life. It is, however, also a wrong committed against other human beings, to the extent it violates what is owed in veracity or truthfulness, and a wrong committed against God, to the extent it involves aversion from God as First Truth; and all cases are both, but not always to the same degree.
It should be said, however, that on certain positions, like that of Scotus, God may dispense from the wrongness of speaking falsely with the intent to deceive in certain cases. It is not my intent to address this matter here, where it is not relevant; for in such a case the possible permissibility through dispensation can only be in the nature of the act in somewhat like the way that the possibility of a miracle is in the nature of things.
To the first. This objection has been answered at length, and adequately, many times by moral theologians. Thus the midwives are commended not for speaking falsely but explicitly because they feared God, which they did when they saved the Hebrew children, the falsehood merely being their excuse to Pharaoh. The same can be said of Rahab, who explains her actions in hiding the spies as being due to reverence for the God of the Israelites, and it is in this sense that Rahab acted with faith; and it also seems to commend her for prudence in taking steps to save herself and her family, as Scotus suggests. Judith is likewise praised for seeking to raise the afflicted of Israel. And Jehu is commended, despite being otherwise a truly wicked man, because in this one matter he stood for the Lord. Now, as Aquinas says, Jehu is no model for anyone, and it cannot be assumed that even when he is praised for his goals that his methods are held up as a model for us. And as Scotus says, they clearly are not, for the lie told by Jehu both provoked people to a sin, namely, to worship Baal, and was a way of procuring the death of others. And, as Scotus says of the story of Judith, "her exploit is told in Scripture and recited in the Church as something praiseworthy only to the extent it manifested religious devotion, though some other circumstances connected with this deed are neither praiseworthy nor allowable." With regard to the midwives, to Rahab, and probably to Judith, however, one can say that their action was consistent with love of God and love of neighbor, for they acted in both cases out of love of God and of neighbor; but this does not imply that their means were in every way perfectly appropriate to this, and the fact that they acted out of love of God and of neighbor is consistent with their means being a venial sin. And this is the way the stories have generally been taught through the centuries. Thus Aquinas says (ST 2-2.110.3 ad 3), "Some are commended in the Scriptures, not on account of perfect virtue, but for a certain virtuous disposition, seeing that it was owing to some praiseworthy sentiment that they were moved to do certain undue things."
To the second. We must be very careful in interpreting the words of certain of the Fathers, not because their arguments are not worthy of respect, but because words may shift meaning over time. And this is clear here, for sometimes the Church Fathers will speak of lying in cases where we would not; and this is true in both the case of Cassian and the case of Chrysostom. For Cassian includes under the term at least three things, promise-breaking, withholding the truth, and speaking what is false, and he does not consider any of the three precisely under the aspect in which they might involve the intent to deceive, but only insofar as deception can be an effect that follows from them. For the monks asked Joseph whether they should break a promise that they certainly did not make with the intent to deceive, for they were sincere in it at the time; but they are worried that if they break the promise they will have had the effect of deceiving others, and perhaps provide a model to others who would take it as an excuse for deceiving themselves. Likewise, Chrysostom is defending himself not for speaking falsely but for not speaking the truth; for he led his friend to assume that he, too, would join the priesthood without delay, despite the fact that Chrysostom knew that his obligations to his mother prevented it; and he did this not by saying anything false, but simply by not telling his friend about his obligation to his mother, knowing that his friend would assume that Chrysostom told him everything. And Chrysostom did this because he knew that it was better for his friend and for the Church for his friend to become a priest, but also knew that his friend would not do so unless he thought that Chrysostom would be ordained with him. Thus Chrysostom says this stratagem or economy should perhaps not even be considered a deception in the proper sense; and his discussion does not seem particularly relevant to this question. And I would argue that this is also true with regard to the interpretation of Peter and Paul as providing, for the purpose of teaching,a dissimulation; for we are not told that either spoke falsely.
Nevertheless, it is true that some few of the comments made by Cassian do apply to speaking falsely with the intent to deceive; however, the tenor of his comments on the subject cuts in the contrary direction to that suggested by the objection. For Cassian even in the sentence quoted above suggests that speaking falsely with the intent to deceive is wrong; and thus he always states that it is either wrong or is at least morally poisonous. His position seems rather to be that, where we cannot see a third alternative in a choice between sinning against oneself by speaking falsely and sinning against God or neighbor, it is less bad to sin against oneself, and that any wrongness in this is pardonable, or, as we might say, venial. And in this way Cassian's position more or less coincides with that above.
As to Newman, his intent in saying that one may follow any of the schools of thought is simply to argue that Catholics are not obligated to agree with St. Alphonsus Liguori on every matter, which Kingsley's argument falsely presupposed. And as to his own position, he says that casuistry is a science for which he has neither the ability nor the temperament, and only addresses the issue at all tentatively and for the purposes of defending himself against Kingsley's charges of equivocation. And he merely considers in this regard the possibility that deliberately saying something false might be only materially a lie and not formally one. Of material lying he says, "It seems to me very dangerous, be it ever allowable or not, to lie or equivocate in order to preserve some great temporal or spiritual benefit" because he does not believe we have clear ways of determining when an untruth is merely materially lying; but he does seem to allow it to protect a secret one has moral obligation to keep, because in such a case one would not be relying on one's own judgment. However, he does not clearly distinguish between withholding truth and material lying, and is explicitly only giving a tentative position, nor does he seem wholly consistent in what he means by 'material lying'.
All other appeals to the Church Fathers on this point can easily be seen to be similar to these.
To the third. The hypothetical scenario of the murderer at the door has been dealt with many times since St. Raymond of Penafort proposed it to clarify why it is wrong to speak falsely with the intent to deceive; and similarly with ambushes and the like. These cases are in fact analogous to the Scriptural cases discussed briefly; the arguments at most show that the wrong is venial, not that there is no wrong. Further, there are many cases of people being faced with such situations without lying, and therefore necessity is not a legitimate appeal. Now, it is certainly true that certain occupations, being difficult, make certain kinds of sins easier, but it is also true that these sins, not being absolutely contrary to love of God and of neighbor, are often at most venial, and that one may still live with charity despite these imperfections in one's life. Thus Aquinas says (ST 2-2.40.3), referring to Ambrose's De Officiis, "Now a man may be deceived by another's word or deed in two ways. First, through being told something false, or through the breaking of a promise, and this is always unlawful. No one ought to deceive the enemy in this way, for there are certain 'rights of war and covenants, which ought to be observed even among enemies'."
As to the suggestion that speaking falsely with the intent to deceive is only wrong to the extent that it violates someone's right to know the truth and thus not to be deceived, thereby harming them, this objection confuses the moral debt of truthfulness with certain kinds of legal debt, and in any case is shown wrong by the arguments given above, for speaking falsely with the intent to deceive also inflicts harm on oneself and is inconsistent with respect for God as Truth. Moreover one should be worried about the implications of it in other ways, because it has repeatedly been used to justify wrongdoing; so, for instance, Grotius, to whom this line of argument is due, uses it to argue that it is not lying, and thus not wrong, to speak falsely to some people in order to deceive them, simply because of who or what they are. And this does not seem consistent with respect for human dignity.
It seems that it is not:
(1) For we find in Scripture a number of stories in which people are held up as heroes and models but who spoke falsely in order to deceive. For instance, the midwives in Exodus 1 did so in order to save Hebrew children, and God dealt well with them, and thus seems to have rewarded them, because it was an act of compassion. Further, Rahab did so about the spies (Josh. 2:5) and for this was spared; and this seems to have been an act of faith. Further, Judith also did so (Jud. 10:12-13), and this seems to have been an act of fortitude. Further, Jehu pretended to worship Baal in order to destroy Baal's prophets, and this seems to have required speaking falsely in order to deceive, but he was praised for it, because it was an act of zeal for God.
(2) Moreover, certain of the Fathers and saints seem to countenance deception in certain cases. Thus St. John Cassian, in the Seventeenth Conference,says (17.20), "We may rightly and pardonably acquiesce in the wrong of a lie, when, as we said, a greater harm depends on telling the truth, and when the good which results to us from speaking the truth cannot counterbalance the harm which will be caused by it." Likewise, St. John Chrysostom, in the first book On Priesthood, says, that a deception "becomes good or bad according to the intention of those who practise it." Further, many Fathers praised Peter and Paul for deception over the matters of the Judaizers. Further, Bl. John Henry Newman in an appendix to the Apologia says that there are many schools of opinion on the subject of lying, and one is free to follow any of them. And he concludes, "For myself, I can fancy myself thinking it was allowable in extreme cases for me to lie, but never to equivocate."
(3) Moreover, intuitively it seems that one should sometimes speak falsely in order to deceive; for if a murderer were at the door demanding to know where someone was, it would seem that he should not be told the truth but sent away by deception. Further, people undercover or in a war often speak falsely in order to deceive, and it would seem that they are not to be blamed for this, because by doing so they protect themselves and many others. Moreover, it is harmful to speak falsely with the intent to deceive in the sense that it violates the rights of others to know the truth and thus not to be harmed by being deceived. However, this right only exists where they are actually harmed by the deception. Therefore it is not always wrong to speak falsely with the intent to deceive.
But, contrariwise:
(1) We are commanded by the Apostle (Eph 4:24) to "put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth"; and he explains the result of this in the following verse, "Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, for we are members one of another." Further, we are told by the Decalogue not to bear false witness; but, as Augustine says (De mend. 6), "whoso utters any thing bears witness to his own mind," and it is because of this reasoning that lying in general has usually been considered as barred by this precept. But if this is so, to speak falsely with the intent to deceive is always lying; for it is always bearing witness so as to harm one's neighbor with deception. Further, Leviticus says (19:1), "You shall not lie; neither shall anyone deceive his neighbor"; but this is most naturally understood as forbidding that speaking of false things with the intention to deceive. Further, the Psalmist says of the wicked (Ps. 52:5), "You love evil rather than good, lies rather than honest speech." But lies, which are placed on the side of evil, are contrasted with honest speech; and in honest speech one speaks as truly as one can. Further, we read in Proverbs 8:7, "My mouth recounts truth but my lips abhor wickedness; sincere are all the words of my mouth, not one of them is wily or crooked"; but this implies that it is wicked to speak insincerely, for one's words to be crooked, and in this way not to recount truth. Therefore it implies that it is always wrong to speak falsely with the intent of deceiving. And this is confirmed elsewhere in Proverbs, as when it says (Pr. 12:19), "Truthful lips endure forever, the lying tongue, for only a moment," and (12:22) "Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who are truthful are his delight." Further, in listing sins at one point, Isaiah says (Is. 59), "Your lips speak falsehood, and your tongue utters deceit," and, later, considering offenses against God, "uttering words of falsehood the heart has conceived". Further, we are told (Mt. 7:12), "Do to others what you would have them do to you," but no one wants to be told false things in the expectation that one will be deceived.
(2) Moreover, St. Augustine says (De mend. 5), "no one doubts that it is a lie when a person willingly utters a falsehood for the purpose of deceiving: wherefore a false utterance put forth with will to deceive is manifestly a lie." And this is overwhelmingly the view of the many saints who have commented at length on this question. So, for instance, St. Thomas Aquinas says (ST 2-2.110.3), "as words are naturally signs of intellectual acts, it is unnatural and undue for anyone to signify by words something that is not in his mind." Thus also Bl. John Duns Scotus says (Ord. III suppl. dist 38), "all commonly hold that a lie is a sin," and there it is clear that a lie is understood to be speaking falsely with the intent to deceive; and later he argues that to utter words, knowing the opposite to be the case, and thus with the intention to deceive, is always a sin. The list of saints who have both seriously considered this matter and concluded that speaking falsely with the intention to deceive is always wrong could be extended greatly. Further, Gaudium et Spes says (24), "Man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself." Thus one ought to give oneself sincerely, and this is a virtue. But in speaking falsely in order to deceive one not only does not give oneself sincerely, one does the direct opposite. But an act that directly opposes a virtue is a sin.
(3) Moreover, it is wrong to impede a rational ability naturally ordered to the communication of truth; but reason, insofar as it expresses itself in speech, is naturally ordered to the communication of truth.
I first make the distinction that verbal acts capable of deceiving because what is said is false come in at least two forms. We may distinguish first those capable of deceiving by claim from those capable of deceiving by promise, as when one promises something and then one breaks one's promise. Only the former is in view here. Further, it is only instances of actually speaking falsely that is in view here, and not withholding of information, or putting it in esoteric form, or the like. Further, speaking falsely is a matter of discernible meaning, and not of merely one way of taking the word; so that pleasantries, whose meaning everyone knows to consist in acknowledgement regardless of the precise thing said, are not in view, either. And many kinds of jokes may be put in this category as well; as Augustine says (De mend. 2), "Setting aside, therefore, jokes, which have never been accounted lies, seeing they bear with them in the tone of voice, and in the very mood of the joker a most evident indication that he means no deceit, although the thing he utters be not true."
And I respond that deliberately speaking falsely with the intention to deceive is a sin against oneself, against one's neighbor, and against God. I take these in turn.
(1) One may consider sins against oneself in light of what order they violate and in light of what good they impede by violating that order. Human reason has truth as its natural end; and therefore any act of reason that is wholly contrary to truth is an act that is intrinsically disordered, and thus a sin against oneself as a rational creature. But speech is a rational act. Thus to speak falsely in order to deceive is intrinsically disordered, because it is contrary to truth both as to its object (for its object is to speak falsely) and as to its intended end (for its intended end is that another will believe what is false). But if an act is contrary to the end both as to its object and as to its intended end, it is wholly contrary to that end.
On the second point, the human life as ordered to truth manifests the goodness of God, who is supremely Truth, and to manifest the goodness of God is a great good of human life. Thus to act in a way that is not ordered to truth impedes the great good of manifesting God's goodness as Truth. But never will there be any good that can be obtained from speaking falsely with the intention to deceive that is equal to this great good of manifesting God's goodness. Thus speaking falsely with the intent of deceiving is to prefer a lesser good for oneself over a much greater good for oneself.
(2) To speak falsely with the intent to deceive is a sin against one's neighbor, in terms of both human dignity and social life. A virtue is said to be ancillary to, or a potential part of, justice, through having something in common with justice, even though in some way it does not have some detail of the definition of justice. These potential parts of justice, while not justice in the strict sense, can be considered justice in a broader sense. The virtue of truthfulness, by which human life is made excellent through the disposition to be truthful, has two things in common with justice. First, it is directed to another as a sort of exchange; that is, the truthful person communicates truth to others. Second, it requires that there be a sort of equality, so that what one says is truly equivalent to what one knows or believes, and is not counterfeit. It differs from justice, however, in that it does not consider a legal debt but a moral debt. Legal debts in strict sense arise from the exchange itself, so that one must pay them in full or be unjust, and if one has paid them in full one is released from obligation; although there are legal debts in a broader sense, such as the debt to one's parents considered by the virtue of filial piety, in which one cannot pay them in full, and thus the necessity they impose is not to pay the debt in full but continually to render what is owed, to one's ability. Truthfulness does not consider a legal debt of either sort, because no one is always owed the truth; for instance, sometimes it is good to withhold the truth. But there is a sort of moral debt that involves respect for true good, and receives a certain obligatoriness from a more general obligation. Truthfulness considers such a moral debt, for one owes it to one's neighbor to be a truthful person, out of respect for them and for common good.
(a) Out of respect for the person: because they are rational, they are ordered to truth and find their good in truth. Therefore one owes one's neighbor, in a sort of general way, the good of truth, and protection from its opposite, when one can give it.
(b) Out of respect for common good: Since human beings, being rational, are social, we naturally owe each other what is necessary for preserving human society. But human society depends on the ability of people to trust what other people say. To speak falsely with the intent to deceive is not conducive to such trustworthiness, and, indeed, is wholly opposed to it, since it is opposed to it both as to object (which is to speak falsely) and as to intended end (which is to deceive). Thus it is a sin against one's neighbor.
However, because truthfulness renders what is owed in a moral way rather than a legal way, it is possible for the severity of one's sin to be greater or lesser depending on what goods one has in view when speaking falsely. Thus, for instance, speaking falsely to save someone from harm in some way is a much less serious offense against one's neighbor than speaking falsely in order simply to have fun, and both are much less serious than speaking falsely in order to cause harm to many. This is because in the former cases the intending of the good considered is by its very nature less opposed to the good of one's neighbor.
(3) To speak falsely with the intent of deceiving is a sin against God. For God is Truth, and all things that are true have a relation to God as Truth. Thus by speaking falsely with the intent to deceive one turns away from God, who is Truth, and this is a sin against Him. Thus Bl. Antonio Rosmini says (Consc. 606), "Truth and goodness therefore must be loved even to the extent of avoiding all danger of acting against them," because, as he says, truth and goodness are God's appurtenances. And he follows this by saying, "We should therefore always be on the side of truth and goodness because these are essentially moral objects and everything opposed to them is intrinsic, formal evil. This is the principle governing all that St. Augustine and other theologians say against lying as opposed to truth." However, it is also true that not all truths are equally related to the First Truth, and thus it follows that not every case of speaking falsely with the intent to deceive is equally severe; further, not everyone has equal cognizance of the relation of truth to God as First Truth, and for this reason as well not every case is equally severe.
From the arguments given above I conclude that to speak falsely with the intention to deceive is wrong, and is primarily wrong as a sin against oneself, and in particular is so because it is, as St. Thomas says, unnatural in such a way as to be inconsistent with one's own moral life. It is, however, also a wrong committed against other human beings, to the extent it violates what is owed in veracity or truthfulness, and a wrong committed against God, to the extent it involves aversion from God as First Truth; and all cases are both, but not always to the same degree.
It should be said, however, that on certain positions, like that of Scotus, God may dispense from the wrongness of speaking falsely with the intent to deceive in certain cases. It is not my intent to address this matter here, where it is not relevant; for in such a case the possible permissibility through dispensation can only be in the nature of the act in somewhat like the way that the possibility of a miracle is in the nature of things.
To the first. This objection has been answered at length, and adequately, many times by moral theologians. Thus the midwives are commended not for speaking falsely but explicitly because they feared God, which they did when they saved the Hebrew children, the falsehood merely being their excuse to Pharaoh. The same can be said of Rahab, who explains her actions in hiding the spies as being due to reverence for the God of the Israelites, and it is in this sense that Rahab acted with faith; and it also seems to commend her for prudence in taking steps to save herself and her family, as Scotus suggests. Judith is likewise praised for seeking to raise the afflicted of Israel. And Jehu is commended, despite being otherwise a truly wicked man, because in this one matter he stood for the Lord. Now, as Aquinas says, Jehu is no model for anyone, and it cannot be assumed that even when he is praised for his goals that his methods are held up as a model for us. And as Scotus says, they clearly are not, for the lie told by Jehu both provoked people to a sin, namely, to worship Baal, and was a way of procuring the death of others. And, as Scotus says of the story of Judith, "her exploit is told in Scripture and recited in the Church as something praiseworthy only to the extent it manifested religious devotion, though some other circumstances connected with this deed are neither praiseworthy nor allowable." With regard to the midwives, to Rahab, and probably to Judith, however, one can say that their action was consistent with love of God and love of neighbor, for they acted in both cases out of love of God and of neighbor; but this does not imply that their means were in every way perfectly appropriate to this, and the fact that they acted out of love of God and of neighbor is consistent with their means being a venial sin. And this is the way the stories have generally been taught through the centuries. Thus Aquinas says (ST 2-2.110.3 ad 3), "Some are commended in the Scriptures, not on account of perfect virtue, but for a certain virtuous disposition, seeing that it was owing to some praiseworthy sentiment that they were moved to do certain undue things."
To the second. We must be very careful in interpreting the words of certain of the Fathers, not because their arguments are not worthy of respect, but because words may shift meaning over time. And this is clear here, for sometimes the Church Fathers will speak of lying in cases where we would not; and this is true in both the case of Cassian and the case of Chrysostom. For Cassian includes under the term at least three things, promise-breaking, withholding the truth, and speaking what is false, and he does not consider any of the three precisely under the aspect in which they might involve the intent to deceive, but only insofar as deception can be an effect that follows from them. For the monks asked Joseph whether they should break a promise that they certainly did not make with the intent to deceive, for they were sincere in it at the time; but they are worried that if they break the promise they will have had the effect of deceiving others, and perhaps provide a model to others who would take it as an excuse for deceiving themselves. Likewise, Chrysostom is defending himself not for speaking falsely but for not speaking the truth; for he led his friend to assume that he, too, would join the priesthood without delay, despite the fact that Chrysostom knew that his obligations to his mother prevented it; and he did this not by saying anything false, but simply by not telling his friend about his obligation to his mother, knowing that his friend would assume that Chrysostom told him everything. And Chrysostom did this because he knew that it was better for his friend and for the Church for his friend to become a priest, but also knew that his friend would not do so unless he thought that Chrysostom would be ordained with him. Thus Chrysostom says this stratagem or economy should perhaps not even be considered a deception in the proper sense; and his discussion does not seem particularly relevant to this question. And I would argue that this is also true with regard to the interpretation of Peter and Paul as providing, for the purpose of teaching,a dissimulation; for we are not told that either spoke falsely.
Nevertheless, it is true that some few of the comments made by Cassian do apply to speaking falsely with the intent to deceive; however, the tenor of his comments on the subject cuts in the contrary direction to that suggested by the objection. For Cassian even in the sentence quoted above suggests that speaking falsely with the intent to deceive is wrong; and thus he always states that it is either wrong or is at least morally poisonous. His position seems rather to be that, where we cannot see a third alternative in a choice between sinning against oneself by speaking falsely and sinning against God or neighbor, it is less bad to sin against oneself, and that any wrongness in this is pardonable, or, as we might say, venial. And in this way Cassian's position more or less coincides with that above.
As to Newman, his intent in saying that one may follow any of the schools of thought is simply to argue that Catholics are not obligated to agree with St. Alphonsus Liguori on every matter, which Kingsley's argument falsely presupposed. And as to his own position, he says that casuistry is a science for which he has neither the ability nor the temperament, and only addresses the issue at all tentatively and for the purposes of defending himself against Kingsley's charges of equivocation. And he merely considers in this regard the possibility that deliberately saying something false might be only materially a lie and not formally one. Of material lying he says, "It seems to me very dangerous, be it ever allowable or not, to lie or equivocate in order to preserve some great temporal or spiritual benefit" because he does not believe we have clear ways of determining when an untruth is merely materially lying; but he does seem to allow it to protect a secret one has moral obligation to keep, because in such a case one would not be relying on one's own judgment. However, he does not clearly distinguish between withholding truth and material lying, and is explicitly only giving a tentative position, nor does he seem wholly consistent in what he means by 'material lying'.
All other appeals to the Church Fathers on this point can easily be seen to be similar to these.
To the third. The hypothetical scenario of the murderer at the door has been dealt with many times since St. Raymond of Penafort proposed it to clarify why it is wrong to speak falsely with the intent to deceive; and similarly with ambushes and the like. These cases are in fact analogous to the Scriptural cases discussed briefly; the arguments at most show that the wrong is venial, not that there is no wrong. Further, there are many cases of people being faced with such situations without lying, and therefore necessity is not a legitimate appeal. Now, it is certainly true that certain occupations, being difficult, make certain kinds of sins easier, but it is also true that these sins, not being absolutely contrary to love of God and of neighbor, are often at most venial, and that one may still live with charity despite these imperfections in one's life. Thus Aquinas says (ST 2-2.40.3), referring to Ambrose's De Officiis, "Now a man may be deceived by another's word or deed in two ways. First, through being told something false, or through the breaking of a promise, and this is always unlawful. No one ought to deceive the enemy in this way, for there are certain 'rights of war and covenants, which ought to be observed even among enemies'."
As to the suggestion that speaking falsely with the intent to deceive is only wrong to the extent that it violates someone's right to know the truth and thus not to be deceived, thereby harming them, this objection confuses the moral debt of truthfulness with certain kinds of legal debt, and in any case is shown wrong by the arguments given above, for speaking falsely with the intent to deceive also inflicts harm on oneself and is inconsistent with respect for God as Truth. Moreover one should be worried about the implications of it in other ways, because it has repeatedly been used to justify wrongdoing; so, for instance, Grotius, to whom this line of argument is due, uses it to argue that it is not lying, and thus not wrong, to speak falsely to some people in order to deceive them, simply because of who or what they are. And this does not seem consistent with respect for human dignity.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Strategy of Virtue
One of Tolkien’s most impressive achievements is that he convinces the reader that the mistakes which Sauron makes to his undoing are the kind of mistakes which Evil, however powerful, cannot help making just because it is Evil. His primary weakness is a lack of imagination, for, while Good can imagine what it would be like to be Evil, Evil cannot imagine what it would be like to be Good. Elrond, Gandalf, Galadriel, Aragorn are able to imagine themselves as Sauron and therefore can resist the temptation to use the Ring themselves, but Sauron cannot imagine that anyone who knows what the Ring can accomplish, his own destruction among other things, will not use it, let alone try to destroy it.
This is from W. H. Auden's review of The Lord of the Ring, which is arguably still the single best discussion of the work. On the temptation point, I think it's a bit more than this, though. It's not just that Galadriel and the others are able to imagine themselves in Sauron's place; it's that they can imagine the story of their own corruption. Galadriel knows the mind of Sauron with regard to the Elves, but she would never under any plausible course of events become just like Sauron. But she can recognize what she could become, step by step and bit by bit, and see it for what it would really be. This is not imagination in the sense of images in the head or feeling in the chest; it is instead the very strategy that constitutes virtue, one of the essential acts of prudence without which virtue can never come to completion. By it the Wise trace out all the courses before them. But Sauron's strategic imagination, formidable as it may be, is corrupt, more cunning than prudence, and because of that it can only look towards one thing, the domination of others, and where this is not the governing theme, where the Wise refuse to fight on Sauron's terms and in Sauron's ways, he can understand nothing -- at least, until it is too late, and disaster has already come to Mount Doom. Evil always takes itself to be the inevitable course, the only desirable course, the only intelligent course; it doesn't have the sort of strategic imagination required to see that there are better ways. If it did, it would begin to reform.
Admin Note
Just to let everybody know, just in case -- I've recently been having problems with Blogger; it started with problems logging in to comments secions on other Blogger blogs, then spilled over into a massive increase in the rate at which I end up in the spam filter at those blogs, and has resulted, once, in an temporary removal of Siris for "unusual activity". In other words, whatever automated process Google uses misread the login glitches as an indication of spam activity and went into action. (I have no idea why the login problems happened.) Obviously this is fixed now, but I thought I would put something up just in case it happens again -- should you happen to come to this URL and get a message saying the blog was removed, you know why (and know that it is temporary).
Actually I've noted a lot of minor glitches in Blogger recently; the Links to This Post function has become very oversensitive, and is constantly adding links that don't actually link to the post (I think it is often reading temporary links on sidebar blogrolls as if they were stable links, but this doesn't explain all the cases I've noticed). The search bar at the top also has had more problems loading. (ADDED LATER -- And now the Recent Posts widget keeps not loading properly. The Virtual Gremlins are out to get me.) So I hope that all this is just a temporary problem that will be resolved at some point.
Actually I've noted a lot of minor glitches in Blogger recently; the Links to This Post function has become very oversensitive, and is constantly adding links that don't actually link to the post (I think it is often reading temporary links on sidebar blogrolls as if they were stable links, but this doesn't explain all the cases I've noticed). The search bar at the top also has had more problems loading. (ADDED LATER -- And now the Recent Posts widget keeps not loading properly. The Virtual Gremlins are out to get me.) So I hope that all this is just a temporary problem that will be resolved at some point.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Morality as a Natural Phenomenon
Simon Blackburn helpfully lets us know that the roots of morality as a natural phenomenon are found in our natural moral capacities:
Next on the list: showing that reasoning is a natural phenomenon whose roots lie in our natural ability to make judgments and draw conclusions, that religion is a natural phenomenon rooted in our natural ability to engage in religious practices, and that going to bed is a natural phenomenon whose roots lie in our need for sleep.
Seriously, though, I actually don't know of anyone spends much time talking about the subject who doesn't think that morality is a natural phenomenon in at least something like this sense, even if they have weaker sentimentalist inclinations than Blackburn; even the very strongest forms of divine command theory hold that we have natural moral capacities -- they just think that consistent atheism is inconsistent certain things that moral capacities require, or that it enervates their effectiveness, or that these natural capacities culminate or find their best organization when combined with the belief that their demands are actually truly authoritative commands. If William Warburton can agree with your moral naturalism, you don't really have much of a moral naturalism.
But it is nice to see Adam Smith's impartial spectator, even if Blackburn doesn't acknowledge how controverisal he is. Plus I'm experimenting with using Blackburn's Think as a textbook for a course this summer (I've wanted to try it out for years now, and my usual course structure isn't suitable for the particular kind of course I'll have to be teaching this summer, due to the way it's scheduled); I can add this review as a supplement to the "What to Do" chapter.
Morality is a natural phenomenon. Its roots lie in our needs and our capacities for sympathetically imagining the feelings of others, for inventing co-operative principles, for being able to take an impersonal view of our own doings. We have what Adam Smith called a “man within the breast” monitoring our feelings and actions in the name of those with whom we live. Imagining their admiration, we feel pride; imagining their anger, guilt, their contempt, shame.
Next on the list: showing that reasoning is a natural phenomenon whose roots lie in our natural ability to make judgments and draw conclusions, that religion is a natural phenomenon rooted in our natural ability to engage in religious practices, and that going to bed is a natural phenomenon whose roots lie in our need for sleep.
Seriously, though, I actually don't know of anyone spends much time talking about the subject who doesn't think that morality is a natural phenomenon in at least something like this sense, even if they have weaker sentimentalist inclinations than Blackburn; even the very strongest forms of divine command theory hold that we have natural moral capacities -- they just think that consistent atheism is inconsistent certain things that moral capacities require, or that it enervates their effectiveness, or that these natural capacities culminate or find their best organization when combined with the belief that their demands are actually truly authoritative commands. If William Warburton can agree with your moral naturalism, you don't really have much of a moral naturalism.
But it is nice to see Adam Smith's impartial spectator, even if Blackburn doesn't acknowledge how controverisal he is. Plus I'm experimenting with using Blackburn's Think as a textbook for a course this summer (I've wanted to try it out for years now, and my usual course structure isn't suitable for the particular kind of course I'll have to be teaching this summer, due to the way it's scheduled); I can add this review as a supplement to the "What to Do" chapter.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Ritual
Ritual is really much older than thought; it is much simpler and much wilder than thought. A feeling touching the nature of things does not only make men feel that there are certain proper things to say; it makes them feel that there are certain proper things to do. The more agreeable of these consist of dancing, building temples, and shouting very loud; the less agreeable, of wearing green carnations and burning other philosophers alive. But everywhere the religious dance came before the religious hymn, and man was a ritualist before he could speak.
G. K. Chesterton, "Christmas and the Aesthetes," Heretics.
How Canst Thou Renounce
Nature
by James Beattie
O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven,
O how canst thou renounce and hope to be forgiven!
Monday, April 11, 2011
Links
* A post at "Webpagina Joost Hengstmengel" on the relationship between economics and ethics in light of Dooyeweerd.
* Philosophy Carnival #123 at "Faith in Philosophy"
* The Catholic Moral Theology Blog has recently started up. So far the posts manage to avoid much Glubglubglub, which is usually, as you know, the official language of contemporary theology; and some of the contributors, like Beth Haile, can definitely be trusted to make reasonable and careful arguments; and they at least recognize that good Catholic moral theology has to put down properly Catholic roots; so it looks very promising.
And since I tend to be very critical of theologians, who I think have, for a very long time now, used the eminence of their discipline as an excuse for not holding themselves to anything other than completely laughable standards of intellectual accountability, I think it's important to encourage those that seem to be doing things the right way (as I've noted before, I think they are much easier to find than they once were). I almost went into theology rather than philosophy; in undergrad I double majored in the two. I went into philosophy for three reasons: I was sick of the awful reasoning (and complete manglings of philosophical ideas and arguments) that I was constantly coming across; and I had discovered that philosophy, despite inconsistencies, was much more congenial to the study of the actual reasoning of the great theologians of history (I got more actual theology in classes and books devoted to the history of philosophy than in even my best theology classes, with fewer arbitrary assumptions, better arguments, and less tendentiousness of rhetoric); and I fell in love with history of philosophy, as a field, in its own right. Over the past decade, though, I've noticed increasing numbers of theologians who are doing the sort of work that would have genuinely kept my interest then, so that's a good sign.
* Ed Feser on Descartes's trademark argument for God's existence.
* Arsen Darnay talks about calculating logarithms by hand. You can read John Napier's own original account at Google Books.
* Despite slowly sinking U.S. numbers, the Narnia movie franchise has been doing well enough that Walden Media will be filming another one. However, they are skipping The Silver Chair for the moment and going to The Magician's Nephew. I suspect that this is a mistake -- The Silver Chair is much more cinematic in character, in the sense that it would be far easier to make a good movie of without botching anything, than The Magician's Nephew. However, The Magician's Nephew is the second most popular Narnia book, and The Silver Chair is the least, and since the proportions of the movie sales have been roughly following the proportions of the book sales, they're trying to play it safe. And (1) there's nothing sacrosanct about any particular ordering of the books and (2) a reasonably successful movie at this point will prevent the series from running out of steam in the middle.
* It's refreshing to find a friar doing what a friar is supposed to do. And in very secular Portland, Oregon, no less.
* Calah of "Barefoot and Pregnant" discusses the phrase "woman in crisis". (ht)
* Jonathan Schaffer, Causes Need Not Be Physically Connected to Their Effects: The Case for Negative Causation (PDF)
Michael Hartsock, Absences as Causes: A Defence of Negative Causation (PDF)
* One thing that struck me about this report on the connections (PDF) between Planned Parenthood and Catholic colleges is that it muddles together two different things: college actions, which genuinely raise issues of consistency, and independent actions of professors, about which colleges often have only very limited say if it's not something actually done in the classroom. This is very uninformative, and the suggestion that a no-tolerance policy on relationships with Planned Parenthood include external affiliations of professors would, if followed, quickly mire many colleges in serious contract violations and wrongful termination lawsuits. (In full disclosure, one of my undergraduate philosophy professors, indeed, one of my favorite undergrad philosophy professors, is on the list because of affiliations listed on his CV.)
* What Is It Like to Be a Woman in Philosophy? is up and running again, and now has a sister site, What We're Doing about What It's Like.
* I hope to say something about "structures of sin" or structural sin (as it is somewhat more loosely called) at some point, so I found this post at "WIT" interesting.
* Philosophy Carnival #123 at "Faith in Philosophy"
* The Catholic Moral Theology Blog has recently started up. So far the posts manage to avoid much Glubglubglub, which is usually, as you know, the official language of contemporary theology; and some of the contributors, like Beth Haile, can definitely be trusted to make reasonable and careful arguments; and they at least recognize that good Catholic moral theology has to put down properly Catholic roots; so it looks very promising.
And since I tend to be very critical of theologians, who I think have, for a very long time now, used the eminence of their discipline as an excuse for not holding themselves to anything other than completely laughable standards of intellectual accountability, I think it's important to encourage those that seem to be doing things the right way (as I've noted before, I think they are much easier to find than they once were). I almost went into theology rather than philosophy; in undergrad I double majored in the two. I went into philosophy for three reasons: I was sick of the awful reasoning (and complete manglings of philosophical ideas and arguments) that I was constantly coming across; and I had discovered that philosophy, despite inconsistencies, was much more congenial to the study of the actual reasoning of the great theologians of history (I got more actual theology in classes and books devoted to the history of philosophy than in even my best theology classes, with fewer arbitrary assumptions, better arguments, and less tendentiousness of rhetoric); and I fell in love with history of philosophy, as a field, in its own right. Over the past decade, though, I've noticed increasing numbers of theologians who are doing the sort of work that would have genuinely kept my interest then, so that's a good sign.
* Ed Feser on Descartes's trademark argument for God's existence.
* Arsen Darnay talks about calculating logarithms by hand. You can read John Napier's own original account at Google Books.
* Despite slowly sinking U.S. numbers, the Narnia movie franchise has been doing well enough that Walden Media will be filming another one. However, they are skipping The Silver Chair for the moment and going to The Magician's Nephew. I suspect that this is a mistake -- The Silver Chair is much more cinematic in character, in the sense that it would be far easier to make a good movie of without botching anything, than The Magician's Nephew. However, The Magician's Nephew is the second most popular Narnia book, and The Silver Chair is the least, and since the proportions of the movie sales have been roughly following the proportions of the book sales, they're trying to play it safe. And (1) there's nothing sacrosanct about any particular ordering of the books and (2) a reasonably successful movie at this point will prevent the series from running out of steam in the middle.
* It's refreshing to find a friar doing what a friar is supposed to do. And in very secular Portland, Oregon, no less.
* Calah of "Barefoot and Pregnant" discusses the phrase "woman in crisis". (ht)
* Jonathan Schaffer, Causes Need Not Be Physically Connected to Their Effects: The Case for Negative Causation (PDF)
Michael Hartsock, Absences as Causes: A Defence of Negative Causation (PDF)
* One thing that struck me about this report on the connections (PDF) between Planned Parenthood and Catholic colleges is that it muddles together two different things: college actions, which genuinely raise issues of consistency, and independent actions of professors, about which colleges often have only very limited say if it's not something actually done in the classroom. This is very uninformative, and the suggestion that a no-tolerance policy on relationships with Planned Parenthood include external affiliations of professors would, if followed, quickly mire many colleges in serious contract violations and wrongful termination lawsuits. (In full disclosure, one of my undergraduate philosophy professors, indeed, one of my favorite undergrad philosophy professors, is on the list because of affiliations listed on his CV.)
* What Is It Like to Be a Woman in Philosophy? is up and running again, and now has a sister site, What We're Doing about What It's Like.
* I hope to say something about "structures of sin" or structural sin (as it is somewhat more loosely called) at some point, so I found this post at "WIT" interesting.
Cathedrals and Lack Thereof
I noticed that Martin Rees in his Templeton Prize speech mentioned Ely Cathedral:
The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely is a good example for his purposes; it is a massive and stunning cathedral in a tiny town -- about 15,000 people -- that has never been large. The Cathedral website has virtual tours, so if you've never been there you can see some of it for yourself. The current cathedral goes back to a Benedictine monastery founded about 970; this was converted into a cathedral about 1109. Its most distinctive feature, the Octagon Tower, was completed by about the middle of the fourteenth century.
William Whewell once argued that Gothic cathedrals are dominated by the Idea of the Vertical, precisely because it gave the sense of the indefinite, and thus of aspiration:
And since Panofsky the analogies between the Gothic architecture -- up and up -- and medieval intellectual life -- also "vertical, aspiring, indefinite," to use another phrase by Whewell -- have often been noted; and what is remarkable is that they both were in their own way conceived of as a shared patrimony, a resource for everyone. We don't really have anything similar (I once suggested, only halfway with tongue in cheek, that the architectural work that most completely expresses our intellectual life is the parking lot). Rees notes this, and suggests that perhaps instead we can work cooperatively to leave our children "a fair inheritance" -- a healthy planet, and the like.
Which is a nice idea, but honestly I don't see it happening. In today's "runaway world" we don't even have the attention span to plan something like a cathedral for centuries; and it strikes me as very plausible that the sort of project envisioned by Rees will require much more planning and have to last for centuries itself.
All too often the focus is short term and parochial – the urgent and the local loom higher on political agendas than even the gravest long-term challenges. We downplay what's happening even now in impoverished far-away countries. And we give too little thought to what kind of world we'll leave for our grandchildren.
As regards my own "philosophy", I continue to be inspired by the music, liturgy and architectural tradition of the Anglican Church in which I was brought up. No one can fail to be uplifted by great cathedrals – such as that at Ely, near my home in Cambridge. Ely Cathedral overwhelms us today. But think of its impact 900 years ago – think of the vast enterprise its construction entailed. Most of its builders had never travelled more than 50 miles; the Fens were their world. Even the most educated knew of essentially nothing beyond Europe. They thought the world was a few thousand years old – and that it might not last another thousand.
But despite these constricted horizons, in both time and space – despite the deprivation and harshness of their lives – despite their primitive technology and meagre resources – they built this huge and glorious building – pushing the boundaries of what was possible. Those who conceived it knew they wouldn't live to see it finished. Their legacy still elevates our spirits, nearly a millennium later.
The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely is a good example for his purposes; it is a massive and stunning cathedral in a tiny town -- about 15,000 people -- that has never been large. The Cathedral website has virtual tours, so if you've never been there you can see some of it for yourself. The current cathedral goes back to a Benedictine monastery founded about 970; this was converted into a cathedral about 1109. Its most distinctive feature, the Octagon Tower, was completed by about the middle of the fourteenth century.
William Whewell once argued that Gothic cathedrals are dominated by the Idea of the Vertical, precisely because it gave the sense of the indefinite, and thus of aspiration:
The ornaments, openings, windows, pillars, which had formerly been governed by the most imperative rules of horizontal arrangement, had been disbanded, or at least their discipline had become good for nothing. The Gothic architect restored the reign of order, and rallied these vague elements in a vertical line. A new thought, a new idea, was infused into the conception of such members, which at once gave them connexion and fixity. The previous change from classical architecture had been a breaking up of the connexion of parts, multiplicity without fertility, violation of rules without gaining of objects, degradation, barbarism. The change now became the formation of connexion; the establishment of arrangements which were fertile in beautiful and convenient combinations; reformation; selection of the good, rejection of the mere customary.
And since Panofsky the analogies between the Gothic architecture -- up and up -- and medieval intellectual life -- also "vertical, aspiring, indefinite," to use another phrase by Whewell -- have often been noted; and what is remarkable is that they both were in their own way conceived of as a shared patrimony, a resource for everyone. We don't really have anything similar (I once suggested, only halfway with tongue in cheek, that the architectural work that most completely expresses our intellectual life is the parking lot). Rees notes this, and suggests that perhaps instead we can work cooperatively to leave our children "a fair inheritance" -- a healthy planet, and the like.
Which is a nice idea, but honestly I don't see it happening. In today's "runaway world" we don't even have the attention span to plan something like a cathedral for centuries; and it strikes me as very plausible that the sort of project envisioned by Rees will require much more planning and have to last for centuries itself.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Stern Joy
Real joy, believe me, is a stern matter. Can one, do you think, despise death with a care-free countenance, or with a "blithe and gay" expression, as our young dandies are accustomed to say? Or can one thus open his door to poverty, or hold the curb on his pleasures, or contemplate the endurance of pain? He who ponders these things in his beart is indeed full of joy; but it is not a cheerful joy. It is just this joy, however, of which I would have you become the owner; for it will never fail you when once you have found its source. The yield of poor mines is on the surface; those are really rich whose veins lurk deep, and they will make more bountiful returns to him who delves unceasingly. So too those baubles which delight the common crowd afford but a thin pleasure, laid on as a coating, and even joy that is only plated lacks a real basis.
Seneca, Epistle XXIII