Kierkegaard, MacIntyre, Williams, and the Internal Point of View

Rob Compaijen

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783319745510
• eBook ISBN: 9783319745527
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

This book takes the debate about the (ir)rationality of the transition to ethical life in Kierkegaard's thought in a significantly new direction. Connecting the field of Kierkegaard studies with the meta-ethical debate about practical reasons, and engaging with Alasdair MacIntyre's and Bernard Williams' thought, it explores the rationality of the choices for ethical life and Christian existence. Defending a so-called 'internalist' understanding of practical reasons, Compaijen argues that previous attempts to defend Kierkegaard against MacIntyre's charge of irrationality have failed. He provides a thorough analysis of such fundamental topics as becoming oneself, the ideal of objectivity in ethics and religion, the importance of the imagination, thepower and limits of philosophical argument, and the relation between grace and nature. This book will be of great interest to Kierkegaard scholars in philosophy and theology, and, more generally, to anyone fascinated by the rationality of the transition to ethical life and the choice to accept Christianity.

© The Author(s) 2018

Rob CompaijenKierkegaard, MacIntyre, Williams, and the Internal Point of Viewhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74552-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Rob Compaijen¹

(1)

Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Keywords

SocratesCalliclesGorgiasKierkegaardAmoralism

End Abstract

Why should I be moral? This fundamental question can be asked in different spirits. It can be asked in an academic way, springing from an intellectual curiosity about the justification of moral beliefs. But, as Bernard Williams (1993, 3) observes, it can also be asked defiantly, against ethical life: “Why is there anything I should, ought to, do?” If the question is asked in this defiant spirit it becomes clear that it is indeed a very fundamental question. Central ethical questions such as ‘What should I do?’ and ‘How should I live?’ seem to imply that the person asking the question already partakes in ethical life. However, ‘Why should I be moral?’ suggests that the person asking the question is, in some sense, outside of ethical life and wants to be given a reason to ‘enter’ it. In asking the question in this way, the universality and validity of ethical life is challenged.

This challenge has haunted moral philosophy from its very beginning. Nowhere is this more clear than in Plato’s dialogues, and especially the confrontation between Socrates and the Callicles in the Gorgias is a wonderful example in this regard. Their conversation (if we can really call it that) is mainly concerned with the question of how we should live (Plato 1997, 492d, 500c). Socrates ’ views on the good life focus on the idea that our souls should be good.¹ Our souls should be orderly and harmonious, which he takes to imply that they are temperate and wise. The temperate and wise person does what is proper in relation to gods (piety) as well as humans (justice). Next to being temperate, wise, just, and pious, the good person is also courageous. Importantly, the good person, possessing these virtues and acting virtuously, will inevitably be happy. The good life is a life of happiness and anyone who wants to be truly happy should strive for temperance and wisdom and should flee from intemperance.

Callicles’ answer to the question of how we should live involves a radical challenge of Socrates’ views. He distinguishes between the natural and the conventional, and argues against Socrates that ethical concerns—especially the concerns of justice—are unnatural conventions, developed by the weak to protect themselves against the strong. Thus, instead of living according to unnatural, moral conventions, the good life is the life in which those who are naturally stronger, better, more powerful, wiser and braver rule over (and possess more than) the weak (Plato 1997, 490a). Another sense in which Callicles understands the good life as a life according to nature is that it seeks pleasure. The good life is a life in which we let our natural desires grow as strong as possible and are capable of fulfilling them. Summarizing his hedonistic standpoint, Callicles exclaims: “Rather, the truth of it, Socrates —the thing you claim to pursue—is like this: wantonness, lack of discipline, and freedom, if available in good supply, are excellence and happiness; as for these other things, these fancy phrases, these contracts of men that go against nature, they’re worthless nonsense!” (Plato 1997, 492c) .

What is particularly interesting is that Socrates’ and Callicles’ opposing answers to the question of how we should live give expression to a conflict that goes beyond two differing standpoints that are on the same (ethical) level. By arguing for a life in accordance with nature and regarding Socrates’ ethical standpoint as unnatural and merely conventional, Callicles seems to place himself outside of ethical life. He aims to challenge the supposed superiority of ethical life, by challenging Socrates’ defense of it. In staging this confrontation, Gorgias portrays what could be involved in living outside of ethical life, and it forcefully brings to the fore the question of whether there are good reasons to embrace ethical life.

Unsurprisingly, Socrates tries to convince Callicles to leave his amoral, hedonistic standpoint behind and embrace ethical life. He does so mainly through elenchus—the distinctive Socratic method of questioning the interlocutor’s beliefs—and tries to establish that Callicles cannot consistently maintain his views on how one should live. Throughout their lengthy conversation, Socrates points out that Callicles contradicts himself. Already at the outset of their conversation, he says: “Callicles will not agree with you, Callicles, but will be dissonant with you all your life long” (Plato 1997, 482b). A clear example in this regard is their discussion on the relation between pleasure and the good. In line with his hedonism, Callicles equates the good with pleasure. Socrates , of course, does not assent to this equation and claims, significantly: “And I believe that Callicles doesn’t either when he comes to see himself rightly” (Plato 1997, 495e). Socrates then develops several sophisticated arguments that aim to make Callicles ‘see himself rightly’. After having brought forward these arguments, he asks: “Tell me now too whether you say that the pleasant and the good are the same or whether there is some pleasure that isn’t good” (Plato 1997, 495a) . What makes Gorgias especially interesting, I think, is that Callicles does not seem very impressed with Socrates’ philosophical arguments: “Well, to keep my argument from being inconsistent if I say that they’re different, I say they’re the same” (Plato 1997, 495a) .

Socrates , shocked by this response, brings forward additional arguments in order to make clear to Callicles that his standpoint is untenable. Yet, after each argument, the latter expresses his indifference, repeatedly denying to understand what Socrates is talking about (Plato 1997, 496a, 496b, 498d) and even claiming that he has deliberately tricked Socrates into refuting a position he does not hold seriously (Plato 1997, 499b). Despite his frustration with Callicles, Socrates continues his plea against Callicles’ standpoint. After developing yet another argument he finally believes he has convinced Callicles to leave his amoral views on how to live behind. However, his concluding remark—“So to be disciplined is better for the soul than lack of discipline, which is what you yourself were thinking just now” (Plato 1997, 505b)—meets, once again, an indifferent response: “I don’t know what in the world you mean, Socrates . Ask somebody else. […] And I couldn’t care less about anything you say, either. I gave you these answers just for Gorgias’ sake” (Plato 1997, 505c) .

Callicles then decides to refrain from participating in his conversation with Socrates . Socrates refrains from elenchus altogether and the dialogue turns more or less into a monologue. It seems as if Socrates finally realizes that pointing out the inconsistencies in Callicles’ standpoint will not motivate him to embrace ethical life. What happens next is fascinating: Socrates decides to tell a story about the judgment of the soul after death (Plato 1997, 523a). After death, he explains, the soul of the person who has sought truth and justice will be send to the Islands of the Blessed, whereas the soul of the person who is “full of distortion and ugliness due to license and luxury, arrogance and incontinence in its actions” (Plato 1997, 525a) will be sent to Tartarus to be punished. Having told this tale, Socrates invites Callicles once more to leave his amoral position behind and start living an ethical life. However, whereas Socrates , earlier in the dialogue, tried to motivate Callicles to do so by pointing out the inconsistencies of his standpoint, his invitation has now become a warning. Callicles should fear the day of judgment because he advocates precisely the kind of life that will lead one to Tartarus: “And I take you to task, because you won’t be able to come to protect yourself when you appear at the trial and judgment I was talking about just now” (Plato 1997, 526e). Socrates’ final attempt to motivate Callicles to adopt the ethical life-view, then, has taken a radically different character. Instead of pointing out in which respects Callicles’ standpoint is rationally untenable, he insists: “So, listen to me and follow me to where I am, and when you’ve come here you’ll be happy both during life and at its end, as the account indicates” (Plato 1997, 527c).

In staging the confrontation between Socrates and Callicles in this way, Gorgias raises many fundamental questions. What exactly is ethical life? Is life outside of ‘the ethical’ at all possible? If so, what does it look like? Is the standpoint of Callicles and others who are seemingly outside of ethical life misguided? And if it is, is their fundamental mistake that they contradict themselves? If so, what kind of contradiction is at stake here? Is their problem that they hold contradicting views? Are they, for example, equating the good with pleasure while also (implicitly perhaps) denying this? Is their amoral standpoint, to give a more sophisticated example, contradicted by the fact that, as human agents, they necessarily value other agents and their freedom? Or is their problem that they contradict themselves in the sense that, by living outside of the ethical, they act against their own best interests? What are their best interests? Is it possible to come up with an objective account of best interests? And what if (what we regard as) their best interests differ significantly from what they themselves perceive as their best interests? Moreover, what do we say to them? What is philosophical argument capable of both with regard to defending ethical life, and with regard to motivating Callicles and others to embrace ethical life? (Can we even plausibly distinguish between both aims?) Is Socrates ’ change in discourse the inevitable fate of any attempt to defend ethical life against its despisers? Can an appeal to myth or religious discourse establish the conclusion that there is reason to embrace ethical life?

In this book I will explore such questions. I will primarily do so by focusing on the thought and works of the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard, who, like Plato , is very sensitive to the kind of existential situations in which the question ‘Why should I be moral?’ typically arises and receives its striking urgency. My primary aim in this book is to find an answer to the question of whether we can plausibly ascribe a reason to embrace ethical life to those living in some sense outside of it. This main question consists of several important though complex philosophical notions. Answering it involves an exploration of what is involved in eth...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. MacIntyre’s Critique of Kierkegaard
• 3. Internalism About Practical Reasons
• 4. Kierkegaard on Being Human
• 5. Embracing Ethical Life
• 6. Entrusting Oneself to Christian Life
• 7. Conclusion
• Back Matter