tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-223797477664258632.post8441677908095207253..comments2023-09-11T01:18:18.763-07:00Comments on Natural Right and Biology: The Evolution of Virtue 7Ken Blanchardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09580209017016829598noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-223797477664258632.post-13346394263515810822013-06-01T22:17:56.994-07:002013-06-01T22:17:56.994-07:00Welcome back Miranda! As always I am energized by...Welcome back Miranda! As always I am energized by your questions and comments. <br /><br />1) Does morality determine what happens to you after you die? I thought that that was determined solely by the acceptance of grace. I am pretty sure that certain mental diseases can render one incapable of any loving relationship but I am pretty sure that God's grace is not limited by such things. <br /><br />3) Here we are getting somewhere. Socrates believed, as I interpret him, that all evil was a result of a failure of self-government. Men do evil because their appetites or their passions overrule their intelligence. Intelligence sees things for what they are and it sees both the idea of justice and of the good. A genuinely self-governed person is beyond temptation. Of course, Socrates may have been the only example. Perhaps there was another. <br /><br />Socrates, of course, believed that justice was something as real as gravity. It exists in itself, regardless of whether we recognize it or not. Socrates believed in natural right. <br /><br />Machiavelli did not. He supposed that nature was at best indifferent and at times actively hostile to human beings. All order and such salvation as we can achieve must be imposed by human virtue on the raw materials of history. Virtue is defined as that set of mental and spiritual (i.e., passionate) traits that can impose order on chaos. Accordingly, his ethics strictly subordinates character to politics. What is beautiful to Niccolo is the new prince. <br /><br />The question is: who is right? Plato's Socrates or the murderous Machiavel? I am with Socrates. Ken Blanchardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09580209017016829598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-223797477664258632.post-82575208414369925002013-05-30T14:55:31.890-07:002013-05-30T14:55:31.890-07:00Dr. Blanchard: Thanks, once again for your patienc...Dr. Blanchard: Thanks, once again for your patience and thoughtful answers. <br /><br />1) I like your reading of the Gage story better and maybe you're right that it's not troubling. I suppose being moral does require having certain physical traits, or else perhaps a rock could be moral. But when you've grown up with the idea that morality helps determine what happens to you after you die, it seems distressing to think that a person could be prevented from being moral just by a physical accident - so it still bothers me. Still, as you point out, that doesn't mean it's not true.<br /><br />2) This makes sense to me. I hope the second part isn't true, but I accept that it might be. I also agree with your assessment of Churchill and his virtue.<br /><br />3) I accept this as true. I can't think of a religion that does off hand. I think it takes more than being able to govern yourself. Someone who followed Machiavelli's ideas might very well be able to govern himself, but if he followed Machiavellian principles, I am not sure I would want to imitate him. There is - I think - some element missing here.Miranda Flintnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-223797477664258632.post-8630042814133293372013-05-03T22:28:24.375-07:002013-05-03T22:28:24.375-07:00Miranda: Your questions and comments have been ex...Miranda: Your questions and comments have been excellent, which is to say, virtuous. Our running dialogue of late is what philosophy is supposed to look like. I don't pay you nearly enough. <br /><br />1) I think you misread the story of Phineas Gage. Any virtuous action requires a certain set of natural equipment. One cannot be an excellent runner without both legs and lungs. That doesn't mean that the equipment determines the outcome. It merely makes it possible. To proceed from potential to actual virtue, one has to choose to cultivate one's natural endowment. When that happens, it is beautiful. <br /><br />The story of Gage suggests that the mental equipment necessary for moral virtue (or even moral competence) lies in a certain area in the prefrontal cortex. I see no problem with this. Perhaps our souls can somehow be detached from our physical bodies, but in this world our thoughts, emotions, and sensations require a certain kind of brain with a certain kind of architecture and a specific set of mental schema. <br /><br />Having such equipment does not determine whether our actions are beautiful or disgusting; it mere makes both outcomes possible. If the great runner or tennis star is beautiful, then so is the virtuous person. In either case, she is the person who has cultivated her natural endowment with an eye to excellence. <br /><br />2) I concede your point that any doctrine of natural ethics such as I am advancing here can provide some excuse to miscreants. It is entirely possible that some people cannot help but be very bad, as in the case of murderous schizophrenics and psychopaths. That just seems to me to be true whether I like it or not. <br /><br />Likewise, it is possible that only a few of us are capable of excellence in anything. The natural endowment require for exquisite tennis play is probably rare and it may be that the moral endowment of a Churchill is also rare. It's harder to tell. Again, that does not mean that Winston was born virtuous; it only means that he had that potential. He cultivated it. I see beauty in that. <br /><br />3) Some moral principles are dependent on some kind of revelation. Some can be determined by an intelligent inquiry, or at least that is what Thomas Aquinas believed. I'm with Tom. The former may well vary significantly between religious doctrines or even within large religious traditions. Christians can eat pulled pork; I gather that Seventh Day Adventists cannot. As for the latter, the various traditions are much less at odds with one another. Find me a religion that endorses marriage between a mother and her son. <br /><br />Once you do begin an intelligent inquiry into morality, it doesn't seem to me to be difficult to know who to imitate. In the Gorgias, Socrates lays it out. The best kind of person to be is the person who can govern himself. The best kind of partnership or political community is the one that is collectively self-governed. I hold, with Socrates, that this is universal. It works well enough within the confines of any tradition provided that that tradition allows a rational inquiry into virtue. Ken Blanchardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09580209017016829598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-223797477664258632.post-27787478314302663092013-05-03T20:56:41.839-07:002013-05-03T20:56:41.839-07:00Dr. Blanchard:
Thanks again for your patience and...Dr. Blanchard:<br /><br />Thanks again for your patience and thoughtful answers. I remember being both fascinated and by the story of Phineas Gage you told in Human Nature and Human Values. It disturbed me, not just because what happened to Gage was so tragic, but also because it seemed to suggest that it was possible that morality could be determined, not by choice, but by mere chance or physical health.<br /><br />Morality seems, I think, a little less beautiful when it becomes something that a person has because he is born with or without it or because his health or good physical condition permit it. It seems more beautiful and noble when you think of it as something people choose and work towards. <br /><br />Maybe this is one of those things that does not have to be an “either” “or”, but it seems to me that if physical health can determine how moral someone is, it might be easier to justify and excuse the behavior of tyrants. One can see someone arguing that Stalin and Hitler just couldn’t help the way they were or that Churchill was noble, not because he chose to be, but because he was born with physical or mental traits that made him especially courageous. <br /><br />I read the Rushdie piece you linked to and I think Rushdie confirms what I have said about virtue – that there is no consensus and that different people who believe in different religions and philosophies have very different versions of virtue. Therefore, I think it remains very difficult to know who to model yourself after,especially if you do not have a clear definition/set of of criteria to tell you what virtue is to begin with.Miranda Flintnoreply@blogger.com