LS Righteous

From: John and Ruth Beasley (beasley@internetnorth.com.au)
Date: Sun Jun 13 1999 - 03:00:34 BST


Hullo all,

I'm one of the group who has been sitting out of the discussion, mainly out of laziness,
because I knew that I would have to re-read 'Desires Right and Wrong - The Ethics of
Enough' by Mortimer Adler, which is a restatement of Aristotle's ethics by one of the
gentlemen who so upset Phaedrus in Ch 28 of Zen. I found this book enlightening when I first
read it some years ago, and would like to briefly summarise its argument, and then suggest
how it might be reinterpreted in MOQ terms. It puts a different complexion on our topic for
this month and if it generates some debate, well and good.

Here is my summary. (Try to ignore the subject - object language for the moment.)

{Adler believes that Aristotle's 'Ethics', while not without errors, remains the only sound and
pragmatic moral philosophy that has made its appearance in the last twenty five centuries. In
an age when ethics has become problematical, with the assumption that each society
constructs its own view of reality, and there is no effective way to judge one better than
another, Adler argues for the sameness of human nature. He defines needs as those desires
which are the same for all human beings, since they are inherent in human nature and so are
natural desires; while wants are those desires acquired from our nurture or life
circumstances, and so differing widely from individual to individual.

While some objects are to be desired as means and never as ends, and some as both ends
and means to further ends, only one can be a final or ultimate end. Stated as a categorical
imperative, we ought to seek everything that is really good for us. This still allows individual
variation between people, for as well as those real goods we are all obliged to seek, there
will be a variety of innocuous apparent goods that each of us is permitted to seek.

Wrong desires arise from treating something which is itself good, though a partial good, as
though it were the whole or only good, (the totum bonum). Alternatively, it can be to take
something which is good as a means and making of it an ultimate end, or to desire something
which appears innocuous when in fact it is noxious. Pleasure, money, fame and power are
often abused in this way, and the fact that they can be acquired by knaves as well as the
virtuous shows they can indeed be wrongly desired.

Pleasure is the satisfaction we feel when a desire is fulfilled. Hedonists make the mistake of
confusing the satisfaction of a desire with pleasure as the object of desire. Pleasure can be
rightly desired only if it is desired as one among the real goods that human beings naturally
need, and not the only good; if it is desired with moderation and not inordinately (that is,
neither too little or too much, but just enough); and if the pursuit of such pleasure does not
involve injury to others. (Temperance is the moderate enjoyment of the sensual pleasures of
eating, drinking, sleeping, playing and sexual activity, while intemperence can involve either
overindulgence or abstemiousness - too little is just as wrong as too much!)

Money is an apparent good and is wrongly desired when it is desired as an end in itself
rather than as a means.

Fame and power are mainly apparent goods and ought not to be desired for their own sake
or as a means to happiness. Justice does not require that fame be proportionate to virtue, as
any glance at a list of famous people would show. The exercise of power is not in itself evil,
but when virtue is forsaken in gaining and using power,as advocated by Machiavelli, it
becomes expediency, as in the phrase "the end justifies the means". But good means do not
need justification - only immoral means, wrongly desired, require justification.

Right desires, although varied, tend towards the same end, the totum bonum, while wrong
desires aim at a whole range of wrong ends. So while there is a diversity of bad moral
characters in a society (pleasure-seeking, power-hungry, money-mad, etc), persons
motivated by right desire, while differing in minor traits, are all of the same moral character.

While moral virtue (the decision to aim for the totum bonum) can be chosen, happiness also
depends upon good fortune - those who achieve happiness do so because their lives are
attended by strokes of good fortune and because they manage to be reasonably, if not
perfectly, virtuous.

Justice is the other-regarding aspect of moral virtue. It requires that we not injure others by
impeding or frustrating their pursuit of happiness, and that we act for the common good of the
community in which we and others live.

Besides justice there are three other cardinal aspects of moral virtue, all self-regarding.
Temperance is moderation in our desire for goods that are limited goods. Courage or
fortitude enjoins us to take and suffer certain immediate pains for the sake of living a good
life as a whole. Prudence or practical wisdom consists in the choice of the right means for the
right end - the totum bonum. To Aristotle these are four analytically separate aspects of a
unified moral virtue.

The good life is one that involves a decent economic livelihood, the pleasures of play,
freedom and political liberty, and the joys of friendship; in addition, it is one that is greatly
enriched by spending the greater part of one's free time in the pursuits of leisure, all of which
contribute to the growth of the mind and the attainment of intellectual excellence. This is the
highest grade of human life.}

If anyone is still with me, and can ignore the dated syle of all this, and the SOM jargon, I think
it has value in mapping the terrain of morality, and is really helpful in clarifying how
superficially moral choices become immoral when taken, for example, as ends in themselves.
In this sense a Hitler emerges as the result of choices that focus on perceived 'goods' which
are too narrowly defined (the good of the Aryan race) and lose sight of justice and the larger
good. Partial goods, good 'means', and apparantly innocuous desires can all lead to bad
outcomes if they take over from a balanced attempt to seek 'the good'. From this perspective
it is easy to see how men come to choose the unrighteous. Almost any choice can be
defended in terms of some supposed benefit; it is the failure to look at the big picture which
allows us to pretend that our actions are moral even when patently unjust.

It can also be interesting to substitute 'quality' for the rather vague term 'totum bonum' in the
above. (Perhaps 'dynamic quality' fits better.) Notice how Adler comes to the attainment of
intellectual excellence (quality) as the highest grade of human life, but conditional in having
our biological and social needs met. Pirsig's hierarchy is evident even amongst his enemies!

I won't dare enter the debate on free will and the self. This post is already far too long.

John B

MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org



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