VIRTUE, AND SELF-DEVELOPMENT: - PDF document

Articles LIBERTY VIRTUE, AND SELF-DEVELOPMENT: y argument is fbr the zecessary �C[niilna-tjnn of' naIlitirs eth- --:I -A- r'- ----- its. It is therefore at odds with clae moriern desci-iptiiie science, f'ro~ii prescriptive thinking, oii the "'is- ought" distinction. In the beginning of modernity, 44130 years ago, the realpolitik initiative was resolve to moral ideals and confine it mor-alitj; reopen the q~aestion of their interrelation- ship ~voulel be quixotic if the consequences of the ?-eaipolitik, positivistic initiatives, we live them were reason- ably gratifying or satisfactory. Wu; believe they connotations. it is, as ive say, "negative" in tivo senses. It is negative in the sense of' representing "heedom from" rather than .'freedom for;" and it is understoocl as a right rvhich is negative, by ~vilich REASON PAPERS SO. 12 by human ins:itr!tiu-ns. Historically it was the right to liberty in this sense that Ivas the telling Tveapon individual against the collective authorities of church and state, iden- tifying the do~ninant theme in political modernity as Michael sax. there were from the start vremoniticjns of future trouble in this enfranchisement, for there l,b-e?-e many "~vho found therrlselves invited to make language, conduct, occupation, relation- sorts, but could not Iere dissolved not only for those who some confidence abilitj. to inhabit a world co~n~osed of autonomous individ- (or ~vho Lad some determination d3 so) for those who by ciicumstances had no such confident deternzina- tion."' Modernity has nevertheless witnessed a substantial achievement of liberty in the Western trouble can those early by Oakeshott. coming- home to roost. The threat to lib- " erty comes not from ignorance of it but from knowledge of it, and not from agencies which from of it being ex- the one hand other hand fbr the burning Why? H will that the but that the reiec- tion of liberty are generated by the foundational realpolitik fallac; of conceiving of Iibertv in independence who trade libertv servitude assume at most chat they obligated moral character legitimating supposition in either case is false, but it is endorsecl bv the rights-~rimitivism of classical liberalism. For if lib- u primitive in underisled, can be with impunity. reason for exercise included in his exercise choose servitude ~er~etuitv. one can with im- i II /I punity in rights-primitive framework. should so we compare the security of dependence with what Michael Oakeshotc identifies as see this in its ~vi~en we recognize the developmental fact that no hur~an being is born autonomous and self-responsible. Every person is in the first stage of his life a dependent being whom subsists selflresponsible individual. Devel- 6 REASON PA4LPERS NO, 12 Or corlsider Love-not: h~ii'~'~e~; in its Clil-ibtia~~ b~t in its classicaI Greek meaning. A3 Socrates, Piato, and Aristot!e make abunda~rti~ clear; hie is a dei-elopxent, It begins in self-love. ~vhich, however, by EiD means pl-eciubes but is instead the precondition of love of others. As self-love Irs object is not the acr~ial but the ideal self, i.e. the innate potentiality in each person xvhich it is that person's respolxsibility to clisco1:er anid progressively actualize. Eros is the energy of actraaliza- tioni associatecl with right aim, cardinal resource armory of the indisidua! by ivhiclm to overcome obstacles and therebj. diminish the probiermaticity of practical activity. But we must post- po~e cotnsideration of ociier virtues and trust that present point sufficientiy made for our irnnlediate purpose. in their aspect as personal I-es~urces, virtues outfit individuals more ei'fectively their ends, diminishing the un- cer~aira~ies of practical life. But in the iirst place the uncertainties can only be diminished, not removed; and in the second place, these persons through extended hard work. Ef the ends rvith respect to ~vli~ch the virtues rrleans can be conferred upon persons, them the arduous enterprise of acquirinc the virtues is gratuitous, and the objective becomes that a. of corlsrructllmg the distributive agency. Perliaps, as has von hfises, Hayek, Oakeshott, Ti- bor TvIachan, and ethers, the notion of'governnrent a beneficent which blocks realization. the fallac-; I want ta., iav h21-e is the supnnsition that --I --- r--= benefits can be conferred. 1 will put the sksprerrle question as pmsented Epon the :;-agic state of Hdlcilic Greece, but I do so in the helief that dais same question lies unarticulated beneath much corm- ternpora:-p alienation and anomie. Does it matter that you and I lis.e? Will natter tEma~ you and H have lived? The answer of Creek eudai- rllonlsm is that it matters and will have mattered if wre Live lives of : ~h. But v:o:.ih must be ear~ed, it cannot be conferred. The cask of living a itorthy Ikk a piece ~mrk, namely the ~7ork of pro- gressiveb actualizirrg the distinctive porenrial excellelice subsistia~g " within us as a yoee~tialie~. and distingisishinzg each of us the indi- te or she is. The ;e**~o~-k is arduous but intrinsically rewarding. The intrinsic rewards are the virtues themselves in another aspect (and in this aspect virtue is righdp said to be its owla reward). As Ar- istotle says, no person ~rllo has experienced these rewards will trade then? for rewards of any otIrer kil1d.j Arid like the objecti:!e xvorth of actualized personhood, these re~vards cannot he conferred but must be earned. Let nie return now to the fallacy alletded to earlier in the exchange of individual liberty for ideological servitude. If liberty is a right, and rights are IvgicaEiy primi~ive, or as Ronald Dworkin insists, "axio- rizatic",Vhen this exchange made ivith inapunity. But from the eudai~mronistic starrdpoint rights are not logically primitive. In the mbnin~ai conception of personhood what is IogicaBiy primitive is not 8 REASON PAPERS NO. stricted in their "economic v:orth."" Social order was generated from the fBct he he prince or peasant, long as Inan pursued his eco- nomic his behavior became predictable. The genius of r-r~alpolitik in building social order out ofa conception of human being which corresponded "the unvar~aished facts," in Hobbes's uhrase, be denied. realbolitik its choice of by its non-de\elopmentai conceptio~l of hurnali being, the as to that the was nastv and brutish should remain ever i such. To put this in Aristotelian-de~elopl~tental of life what we ivould today term utility-maxi~nization; it is what we ~vould economic stage, acdording to it contains llrtue ' or ex- cellence.10 beyond it which moral virtues, philosophical stage which developnlental knowledge today be no question of slavishly follorving Ar- stages, but point remains coi~spired to produce develop- mental arrest in the first, or economic stace, and that with resuect to u I this stage, the amputation of morality from politics meets with no sistance, for this stage moral illusion of all benefits has been fostered econom;st:c conception of man upon which poli'lica! modernity was founded. Frona the standpoint economics as ic is exchange vaiue. This eradicates the disri~action between earned benefits and conferred benefits, fbr the unit of exchange value is monetary, and the money in one's possession represents the same purchasing power, no matter it, found received it a gift. realpoliiik had to overturn the ancient ,no?-a1 doctrine of intrinsic, non-transferrable, earned rewards which had received new currencv in Renaissance hu- manism and the so-called via moderns." It but re- redefinitiov of benefits which rendered them Consider "happiness." In Aristotle's must be the modern meaning, "'peasure" is the feeling of gratified desire. If what we desire is economic in the sense of distributable. as reulbolitik teaches. then happiness is conferrable, for our desires can be gratified by awards by others or by distributive agencies. Another telling example the concept Fl-om standpoint, fundamental srabsises life of worth, life of ~urth gressive self-actualization. al- 1 CI REASOP; PAPERS NO. r'2 which is wrought by Kawls. That desert is the product of the just sys- tem means that Ralvls's conception ofjrrstice is logically independent cannot here be a criterion as it bIatson observes, Rawlsean here distributed, worth is distributed by Mobbes, and dignity by Skinnen; as the re~vard for ac- cepting the terms social system. Rawis, here as elsewhere, finds the prima facie intuitive suppol-t upon which he re1les.l"~ that Wa~vls's readers are tlre end uroducts of 408 conditioning in theory based a rights-primitive man, and recLflrmt which, not merely benefits, but the very self- identity of persons is'conferred. a recipient &en- tation first stage al persons. Here the receive? But disulacement of this question by the prin~acy question, What J do?, with con- sequent exchange a rights-primitive frame~vork. Consonant with uolitical modernitv as a whole. Rawls , does not acknowledge the development of' autonomy out of depend- ence, and what he means by be the internali- .troluntary errdorsement of the terms of dependence. If tje IIOM' undertake to rectify the realbolitik conceution of nlan with modernity began introduciig the responiibility for the persons, the right to liberty exhibits that this de- ve:P?opmPnt is to be the crJf-deveionnl~nt nf il-dit~idLlals, 1a:ith respect to IJ"'-"' "' "' which political But this conceptio~l of individuality as moral development is a eudaimonistic doctrine. The reason that man thus conceived is zoo^ bolitikotl, is that this de- velopment has necessary preconditions, some ofwl~ich cannot be self- supplied by persons as individuals, and Professor Fred D. hliiier has uointed out. to foilo~v Aristotle I in identifying man as zoolz politikov is not necessarily to imply the ap- paratus of the modern state, for in AristotIe the concepts of politics and the polis clearly identified ~vith what we ~vould from the social community.'" ?'here authority here, to try them at this point would be premature. What must be done first is to denlollstrate the uaramount irnuortance persons as while that the self-development applies few who the "natural will he an attempt at such demonstration, by conraecting the virtues of which political Eudaimonistically coi~ceived, the virtues number of things \vhicl~ they have regularly bee11 mistaken to he. In the first some but 0th- 12 REASON PAPERS NO. 2 a gift olvn selects its bu-t the distributable products the self-actualizing individual Aristotle notes. "everv virtrre or excellence (arctd both brings good condition tlik thini [per-son] of which it'is i.hi that thing well done."" By virtue of the nature of self-actualization as objectivization we may say giving to selected the self-actuali;ing the beginning, hut becoming explicit as self-actualization proceeds. If this then labor theory value, namely exciusive property of the laborer, is a serious error. To account for it we may say, first, that it derives from the error of conceiving of individuality "atomistically", i.e. as exclu- ~ersons." must be added the not thwarts generosity of possessiveness will not be purse-snatching and embezzlement that lav first claim native generosity in rneiningful work necessarily lies deeper than these. We find it where ubi- egalitarian supposition ail persons are alike, and that every person is by nature possessed of equal entitiemenc to every- thing. This native generosity gives himself through objectivization, he selects his reci~ients bv ~irtue of the aualitative distinctiveness of the gift. " The gift is meant for those who can appreciate and values which have been embodied in of its maker. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is meant for those who possess the cuiti\ated capacities to appreciate and uti- lize its distinctive values. This appreciation and utilization by others is a condition of the self-fulfillment of the individual. The reason is that self-actualization causes worth to appear in the world which, as objective, is of worth, and in Dersons as fulfill in themselves amreciation I I of worth of the distinctive kind given case. self-ac- tualization is incomplete worth, not, persons, but spoke earlier nec- self-fulfillment, some of which self- provided by persons as individuals. Here is one such non-self-supply- able condition, namely the proximity of other persons who through their own self-actualization have the ca~acitv to an~reciate and utilize ' l the contributions of a given indi\idual.'I thih glorification of ronlantic a reaction-formation own that no one in their appreci- 3 4 REASON PAPERS NO. 12 ackno.tz.ledgec? self-respcjnsil~le. self-deterrninecl indi.l-iduality securest foundation ofjustice, bui declared ii politically irrelevant by reason of its rarity." But Hobbes took it to be an endolt-n~ent sparsely distributed hy the 11atural lottery of birth. The eudaimonistic thesis is that it is, instead, a potentiality in all persons ivhich is only rarely actualized, thanks to neglect of its preconditions. 'Today we possess sufficient knotvledge of developnient these necessary preconditions, ~ve instituting these thereby generalizing the opportunity 111ent. 'The meaning of Aristotle's identification of man as zoorz politb- ko?z is that selflactuaiizing individuality requires a supportive cul- tural cormtext. -Pb provide such is, 1 suggest, our pararnount social responsibility.* 1. hlichael Oakeshott, 012 Hunlnri Colzducl (London: Oxforti Univer-sitv Press, 1975), p. 275. 2. Ihid., p. 236. 3. Friedrich Nietzsclie, Tilt GUT Sclencr., edited aiitl translatecl bv ibltei- Kautma~~n (Nerc York: Viking Press, 1954), pp. 95-96. 4. John Delve!, Tilt jZ1~t.stfir C~)%n~iitj (Ne~v Yoi-k: G.P Putnarn's Sons Capricorn 1960), p. 6. 3. Arisioile, hTcizoirzncher~n Etlzics, IIGCia, 20-23. 6. Ronaltl Drvorkin, Ekziig Rzglits SPTIOIIS(T (London: Ducwortli. 1977), p. vx., p. 181. 7. 'I homas Hohbcs, Leuiatilu~~ Pui-1s I cind II (Iiiciianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Library el-al .Arts, 19583, p. 107. 8. Niccolo hfachia~elli, Tlzr Pr~ncp, translation bv George Bull (London: Harrnond- sworti~, iYbi), p. 9b. 9. -1.0. Hii-schnian, Tile 1'a:slons nncl tile Interrsts: PolititulAi-g1imeii1.\ for Cupztcil!trn B($JP~ Its Erunijjh (Pi-iiiceton: Princeton University Press. 19771, esp. pp. 31-42. 10. Aristoile, iJOi2t7~~ 7, 13 ;ti'cllo~nacileun Eti~lc.c 1, 13. 11. For an excelleilt presentation of the moral politics of Renaissance i~umanism and the i~ln rriodrrizo, see Queniin Skinner, The fizin(Eatzoiis of ~%lodc.m Puliticui bridge: Cambridge Ihiiversity Press, 1978), cot. !. 12. Hobbes, Lrvicithun, p. 79. 13. B.F: Sliinnel: Rtjo?~d �Firtdorri cilld DlgzzzQ (Nel: krk: Bantarn Books, 1972). Mjllace Matson, '%'hat Ma~\.ls Calls Justice,"' The Occnsio?ial Kei~ieiu, Issue 819, (Au- tumn 1978). pp. 45-53. 15. John Rarvls, A Tl~eo~g uf,]zc\ilct (Cambridge, Mass.: Relknap Press of Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1971), p. 100. 16. Ihid., p. 103. 15. Ma~son. "\\'hat Rarvls CallsJustice," p. 55. 18. K.hl. Hare has documented Rawls's extenrile reliance upor1 tile "intuitioils" I-eaders; see Hxe, "Kawls' Theorv of'Justice-1," Pi~ilo.ioph~hltal Qlturter~. 23, KO. 91 (1973), pp. 144-155. 19. Fred D. bliller, Jr., "The State and the Corninunity in Aristotle's Poiztic\,"R~.asoil Pu- p.rs No. 1, pp. 62-69, 25. Imrnanuel Kant, The Fundanlriztul Pri?lci;lrle.i c~~he~IletuphysicofEthics, translation by Otto RIanthe\-Zorn (New York: Appleton-Centiiry-C;roi~s, 1938), pp. 8-9. 21. L4risiotle, ,Vlchornncheu~~ Ethzw, 1i06a, 15-18. 2" Eudaimonistically conceived, personllood intrinsically social the beginning depencient childhood) and intrinsicaliy autonomous individuality); but the two socialities are \.el-y different in kincl. developed in my Prrronal Des- tiniri (Princeton: Princeton Uili\e~-sit) Press, 19763, Chs. 8-10.