Choosing the Good

Christian Ethics in a Complex World

Hollinger, Dennis P.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781585583379
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Déontologie et religion

An intelligent discussion of the foundations and methods in ethics and ways to apply a Christian worldview to our secular culture.

PART 1

THE FOUNDATIONS
OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS

Mrs. Williams was a thirty-five-year-old single mother of two. After almost a decade on the welfare rolls, she had begun to free herself from dependency by taking a job as a cashier at a local grocery store. She had just received her first check, and on the way home from cashing it at the bank with pride, she was held up at gunpoint by a drug addict who needed quick cash for another fix. He grabbed her wallet with over two hundred dollars in cash and fled into the twilight of the evening. Virtually every person would agree that this was a morally reprehensible act. But why was this an unethical action?

To answer that question, we are driven to foundations. Every attempt at devising an ethic assumes some kind of foundation, which is essentially the root framework for deciding what ultimately makes actions or character good or bad. Humans have bedrock assumptions, either implicit or explicit, that serve as the basis for their moral actions and their ethical reflections. The foundation then serves as the primary factor in determining what it means to choose the good and usually carries a glimpse of how that good will be attained in the rough and tumble of real life.

This section examines the key foundations that have been articulated throughout history and in the present. Chapter 1 explores the theories that vied for ascendency throughout much of the modern world: consequentialism versus principle ethics. Chapter 2 examines a recent reaction to those foundations but one that goes far back in history: character or virtue ethics. Each of these theories is, I believe, inadequate as a foundation for discerning the good in a complex world, especially from a Christian perspective. Chapter 3, therefore, sets forth a theological foundation for ethics, rooted in the specifics of a Christian worldview.

1
CONSEQUENCES VERSUS PRINCIPLES

When Karla Faye Tucker was executed in 1998 as the first female victim of capital punishment in the United States in over fourteen years, the event set off a new round of ethical debates concerning an old issue. Shortly after her death, a conversation on the issue took place on a radio talk show. The proponent of capital punishment argued that it was a necessity to deter crime. Capital punishment is a moral good because it is a constant reminder to people that we cannot live together as a society if individuals take life into their own hands. The state’s execution of one who commits such a crime is necessary to prevent further deterioration in our culture. It is needed for the general welfare and happiness of all people.

The opponent of capital punishment indicated that all life is precious and to be valued, and we have no right to take the life of an individual even when that person has committed a heinous crime. He contended that we all know intuitively that human life must be respected and valued, and when we engage in capital punishment, we are only devaluing life in our culture. It is inherently wrong to take a human life, except in cases of self-defense (including war), and we have an obligation to preserve it.

The two debaters represented two traditional approaches to thinking about ethics and the moral life, though each side of this issue could have employed the other’s foundation. The proponent of capital punishment in this case was employing an ethic of consequences, believing that what makes actions right or wrong is the results, which all humans can clearly calculate and assess. The opponent employed a principle ethic, believing that some things are inherently right or wrong, and humans know which is which through moral principles or rules. For some these rules or principles are derived from reason, for others from religion, and for still others they are self-evident from the processes of human history. The consequentialist approach is sometimes called teleological ethics,¹ and the principle approach is also known as deontological ethics. Both are understood as foundations for moral judgments and embody particular approaches in the decision-making process: Consequentialists utilize an evaluation of results, and adherents of principle ethics utilize rules and principles.

Consequentialist Ethics

Consequentialists believe that the ultimate criterion or standard of right and wrong is ends or results. Committing adultery, for example, is not inherently wrong in and of itself, but through our life together as human beings the consequences that arise from adultery may render it morally suspect. One tells the truth as a consequentialist, not because truth telling is itself a moral obligation but because in most situations truth telling produces the best results. Consequences are the foundation of ethics.

Of course, appealing to consequences as a grounding for ethics immediately raises the question, Which consequences? or What type of results? Generally, consequentialists have contended that the results calculated are not moral principles or virtues but nonmoral results. Since all human beings by nature seem to pursue happiness (or pleasure) in life, happiness is the prime candidate for the nonmoral consequences utilized in the evaluation process. But, of course, this raises another question: Happiness for whom? And it is here that we can divide the consequentialist approach into several schools of thought, most notably ethical egoism and utilitarianism.

Ethical Egoism

Ethical egoists argue that ethics is rooted in consequences but specifically those that relate to the individual moral actor. That is, one ought to do whatever will produce one’s own highest good, determined by the amount of pleasure or happiness that the person will receive from the action.

At first glance this might appear to be an ethic of pure selfishness—do what satisfies me. And indeed at a popular level many people engage life in that manner. When Robert Bellah and his cohorts wrote Habits of the Heart, they interviewed hundreds of Americans to discover how they understood and justified their moral foundations. They found that many people operate from a kind of individualism in which personal happiness is the overriding criterion. Brian, for example, was a man who attempted to give more attention to his family and children than to his career and material success, yet in his discussion with the researchers, he continually reverted back to his own personal preferences and happiness: “I just find that I get more personal satisfaction from choosing course B over course A. It makes me feel better about myself.” And as the writers described it, “Morally, his life appears much more coherent than when he was dominated by careerism, but to hear him talk, even his deepest impulses of attachment to others are without any more solid foundation than his momentary desires.”²

But ethical egoism is far more than selfish impulses. It has been set forth as a moderate, rational ethic intended to be the best possible way to achieve the good. As Alexander Pope, the eighteenth-century British poet, put it, “Thus God and nature formed the general frame/And bade self-love and social be the same.”³

One of the first to articulate this foundation was Epicurus (341–270 B.C.), the Greek philosopher who garnered a significant following in the city of Athens. People from all over Greece and Asia Minor came to sit at his feet in the garden where he taught, attracted perhaps as much by his charm as by his mind. Epicurus was a materialist who believed that all knowledge comes from the senses, which portray the world as it really is. He did not deny the existence of the gods, but he believed they had nothing to do with the realities of everyday life. From this framework he concluded that in regard to morals we naturally pursue personal pleasure and therein is goodness. Personal pleasure is the highest good and the main goal of life, but it is never to be an unbridled pleasure. Rather, for Epicurus, hedonism (the pleasure principle) must always be pursued through self-restraint, moderation, and detachment.

Epicurus believed that the body is ultimately the source of our pleasure, but he also believed that there are different types of pleasure. For example, bodily experiences of pleasure are momentary and secondary to the pleasures of the mind (which as a materialist he believed was an extension of the body), and passive pleasures are more valued than active pleasures. True pleasure, which the individual ought to pursue in life, is, in the words of Lucretius, one of his primary students, “Produced by the reason which is sober, which examines the motive for every choice and rejection, and which drives away all those opinions through which the greatest tumult lays hold of the mind.”⁴ The ethical egoism of Epicurus was thus “an austere hedonism”⁵ and clearly different from the kind of hedonism often associated with the name Epicurean, usually referring to a sensual pursuit of pleasure.

Many years later another defense of ethical egoism was rendered by Adam Smith, the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher and economist. Smith began his career as a moral philosopher and reflected this perspective in his first major work, Theory of Moral Sentiments. A few years later he began to apply his thinking to economics and in 1776 wrote his famous treatise An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, the work that has often given him the title “the father of modern capitalism.” In The Wealth of Nations, Smith argued that in economic life each person should seek his or her own good, unfettered by governmental interference. He believed that self-interest (not selfishness) was the highest good in economics because the world was structured in such a way that from it everyone would benefit. In economics “we are led by an invisible hand to promote an end which has no part of his [a human being’s] interest. . . . By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of society more effectively than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”⁶

The ethical egoism of Smith was not unbridled selfishness. Smith “did not trust the morality of the market as a morality for society at large. . . . He envisioned a capitalist economy within a society held together by noncapitalist moral sentiments.”⁷ Nonetheless, Smith did see self-interest as the foundation and guiding principle for economic life, assuming a kind of providential “invisible hand” that ensured its positive outcome. Certainly, not all subsequent theories of capitalism or market economies have assumed self-interest as the highest good, but it was the foundation of Smith’s economic thinking.

In the twentieth century, the clearest rendition of ethical egoism was given by Ayn Rand, a novelist and philosopher who championed an ethic of “rational self-interest.” Born in Russia, Rand immigrated to the United States in 1926 at the age of twenty-one. She soon began her writing career and in 1943 produced her best-known novel, The Fountainhead. In this and other works, Rand set forth her philosophy of objectivism, which contended that society functions best when people pursue their own self-interests. She advocated individualism over collectivism, egoism over altruism, and believed that these were self-evident through reason. As an atheist she rejected any transcendent source for ethics and knowledge.

Rand strongly rejected altruism as a basis for the moral life because rationally it is an impossible concept. “The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption.” In place of such altruism, she contended, “The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal with the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men.”⁸ For Rand, this rational egoism was a reflection of the order of things. Nature and reason simply teach us, she said, that when each person seeks to preserve his or her own self, the world is a more orderly place.⁹ Freedom, justice, and self-esteem can come to fruition only when we follow the path of rational self-interest.

An Evaluation of Ethical Egoism

How do we assess ethical egoism as a foundation for ethics? We must first note that, contrary to the way some Christians have operated or critics have supposed, the Christian perspective does not negate or obliterate the self. In the Christian worldview, the individual certainly counts in the moral maze precisely because humans have been created in the image of God and thus have inherent worth, value, and dignity. A proper kind of self-love is affirmed, for Jesus himself said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). It is also significant to note that self-interest seems to be a major factor in why people become Christians; few embrace Christ because of altruism but rather because salvation offers them something they need.

But despite this affirmation of a proper self-love and interest, ethical egoism must be found wanting for a number of reasons. From a purely rational standpoint, many argue that it is self-contradictory, since it would not be to one’s advantage for all others to pursue their own interests. For this to work, there would need to be some kind of preestablished harmony within the world that would ensure that self-interest results in the best for all. And this, of course, was the assumption of both Adam Smith (from a theistic perspective) and Ayn Rand (from an atheistic perspective). But when we look at human nature and the history of the world, there is scant evidence for this assumption. Both history and our experiences in everyday life reveal clear evidence that self-interest is often at the heart of personal, societal, and international evils. Thus, ethical egoism is a self-defeating enterprise.

From a specifically Christian standpoint, ethical egoism faces a number of problems. For one, it runs contrary to agape love, which from both biblical teaching and the example of Jesus is a self-giving and self-sacrificing love. In the biblical framework, authentic selfhood is not found in seeking one’s own interests but in being other-oriented, yet without negating one’s own self. In contrast to the autonomy implicit in the ethical-egoist claims, Christians understand the human self as a dependent being, as evidenced even in the creation story. From the beginning we learn that humans can best fulfill what God intended through a dependence on their maker and through interdependence with other human beings. Genesis 2:18 states, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner,” which is not only an affirmation of marriage but also an indication of our need for other people in life. Contrary to Rand’s thought, this is not a parasitic condition but one in which the self chooses to give up autonomy in a life of community with God and others to be truly human and authentic.

Ethical egoism as a foundation for ethics is a dead-end street. Not only is it self-contradictory and contrary to the Christian understanding of things, but it would also appear to allow self-centeredness to hold sway. That is at the heart of most moral failures.

Utilitarianism

Like ethical egoists, utilitarians believe that the moral good is rooted in consequences, but they look to a different set of consequences—namely, those that relate to the greatest number of people. The greatest good for the greatest number is the utilitarian mantra, and that good is calculated not on the basis of a moral virtue but on the nonmoral good of happiness or pleasure. Utilitarianism emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when science was becoming queen of the academic disciplines. Many scholars desired to make their field a science, as did a number of moral philosophers. They believed that rather than starting with an a priori rational notion of moral good, one could make ethical decisions through a scientific calculation of the results of human action. They turned to consequences in terms of happiness or pleasure for the greatest number of people in society or the greatest number affected by a given course of action. The principle of utility or usefulness was the only principle for ethics, for goodness essentially resided in what was useful to the people affected by specific actions, and that usefulness was defined by the maximizing of pleasure and the minimizing of pain.

Thus, in the case of capital punishment, if executing a criminal resulted in the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest number of people, then it was a moral good. Conversely, if capital punishment resulted in pain for the greatest number of people, it was a moral evil. The utilitarians did not believe that all people would be affected equally by this approach, but they did b...