In the post on virtue ethics I mentioned how 'values' are the common way of understanding ethics today. Have you ever heard someone say, "Oh, I'm a good person, I have values." People say things like that all the time, but it doesn't really say anything. All a value is in this way of speaking is a subjective, arbitrary moral judgement. We all make moral judgements, it's just that some people make bad ones. These subjective judgements are personal and don't hold true for anyone else. If someone says to you, "I have values, and I don't believe in killing animals, and I don't believe in eating meat," just say back,"OK. I have values, too, and I believe in killing animals whenever I need to and I eat as much meat as I can." There's nothing else either one of you can say if you really believe in 'values'. This exemplifies the incoherence of the modern way of looking at things. It all boils down to power. There is nothing right or wrong, only power, political or otherwise, to dictate which values win.
Christian philosophers have been paying a lot more attention to virtue ethics in the last few years because of this. That means going back to Aristotle, and has led to more study of Thomas Aquinas. Interestingly, the ancients had no word for 'value' in this moral sense at all. They had a word for value in the sense of, "the value of this loaf of bread in $2." But 'value' as in 'family values' is a very new word. The Oxford English dictionary didn't have an entry for the word value in this sense until a supplement in 1986. It seems the first use of the word in English is found in a sociology paper from 1918. But it goes just a little farther back in German to about the 1880's and Nietzsche, and was eventually just absorbed into common language. Nietzsche talked a lot about values and 'transvaluation', getting people to change their values. (I need to check this, but I think the word was used in this way by some others in the 19th century before Nietzche, like Karl Marx, but some people have said Nietzsche basically coined the term.)
Now, a discussion of Nietzsche is premature, but I would like to say that Nietzsche isn't as bad as he is sometimes made out. He is attributed with creating Hitler and killing God, and all sorts of things that are really unfair. His philosophy was bad, certainly, and he did reject Christianity, but he was a lot more complicated most people know. Not all of what he said was wrong. And he was not a nihilist or a relativist. In fact, he had the sense to know that if the world no longer believed in God, existence really was like looking out over a great abyss. But enough of Nietzsche for now. Suffice it for the moment to say that he coined a new term, and it stuck.
It is important to realize that there is more to morality than a set of 'values.' Even if they are 'family values.' If someone says to you,"well, your family values aren't my values," there is really nothing you can say to them." Instead of saying, "that's against my family values," say, "that's not right," then explain why.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Aristotle's Four Causes
On page 43 of the book Colin Brown talks about Aristotle's four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. Brown uses the example of a statue. The material cause is the marble or bronze, etc. The formal cause is the idea or plan of the statue in the mind of the sculptor. The efficient cause is the sculptor. And the final cause is the purpose of the statue, to beautify the city, etc. As Brown points out on page 45, however, Aristotle identifies the Unmoved Mover as the final cause of all things. (This reminds me of the Shorter Westminster Catechism: "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.")
It is interested that the modern world has essentially reduced the four to only 2, and sometimes 1 cause. Only the material and efficient causes are necessary to the modern way of viewing things. People do things with materials, but there is not a 'way things ought to be,' etc. When it comes to things like evolution there is only one cause, because the material and efficient are melded into one cause. The material is the efficient cause in that case. In fact, many Darwinists refuse to accept that the heart as a purpose, or final cause. It just accidentally happens to behave in a way that facilitates the circulation of blood for living people.
Some people think that Aristotle was closer to the Biblical God with his Unmoved Mover than Plato with his Demiurge, and some people the way around. What Brown says about the Unmoved Mover is worthwhile reading. As with Plato, Aristotle didn't know the true God, but his description of the attributes he gives his Unmoved Mover is pretty amazing.
It is interested that the modern world has essentially reduced the four to only 2, and sometimes 1 cause. Only the material and efficient causes are necessary to the modern way of viewing things. People do things with materials, but there is not a 'way things ought to be,' etc. When it comes to things like evolution there is only one cause, because the material and efficient are melded into one cause. The material is the efficient cause in that case. In fact, many Darwinists refuse to accept that the heart as a purpose, or final cause. It just accidentally happens to behave in a way that facilitates the circulation of blood for living people.
Some people think that Aristotle was closer to the Biblical God with his Unmoved Mover than Plato with his Demiurge, and some people the way around. What Brown says about the Unmoved Mover is worthwhile reading. As with Plato, Aristotle didn't know the true God, but his description of the attributes he gives his Unmoved Mover is pretty amazing.
Virtue Ethics
As I mentioned in a previous post, Aristotle was responsible for the understanding of the relationship between virtue and happiness that dominated until it was slowly eroded by the Enlightenment. (Not that the Enlightenment was all bad, either, but it certainly wasn't all good.) In short, he was responsible for the way people thought about ethics/morality. The result of the Enlightenment was that we didn't end up with a more coherent way of looking at morality, but a much less coherent way. There was Kant's 'categorical imperative', utilitarianism, and later 'situational ethics', and the ubiquitous 'value ethics' that describes so much of what we call ethics today, just to name a few schools of thought. All of those deserve individual consideration at some point, but I'm going to give a separate post to 'value ethics' after this one.
Aristotle thought that goodness and happiness had to do with things that promoted an 'actualization of what human beings are capable of.' That's from page 48 in Colin Brown's book. Aristotle believed in design and purpose in nature, and moral goodness in people derived from fulfilling your purpose, what you were designed to do. The virtues weren't desired merely for their own sake, but they were instrumental in allowing one to achieve the designed purpose. To Aristotle the virtues were habits that needed to be developed by training.
Aristotle was consistent with the Bible in that respect. In Ephesians 5:1 we are told to be 'imitators of God' and in Hebrews 13:7 we are told to look to those who have been good witnesses before us and imitate their faith. If we imitate them and turn their habits into our habits it will show up in our walk with God.
As far as purpose and design, the Bible declares that God has created everything, and there is a purpose in creation and history. That is pretty clear. There are a couple of passages in particular I can think of that relate to our discussion of Aristotle. Proverbs 22:6 says "Train up a child in the way he should go..." The passage is well know, but perhaps a little misunderstood. Certainly raising our kids to be Christian is part of that, but as I understand it the passage literally means to 'train up a child according to his bent, or tendency or character.' This involves the idea that the child was created with a purpose in mind, and our job as parents is to help foster the development of that child into the person God wants them to be, taking into account their particular gifts, etc. (Chuck, any input here on the Hebrew would be welcome.)
Also, in Matthew 21 and Mark 11 Jesus curses a fig tree that was not bearing fruit. That tree represented Israel, who was not bearing fruit. Israel had been given a purpose by God and it was not fulfilling that purpose.
Aristotle thought that goodness and happiness had to do with things that promoted an 'actualization of what human beings are capable of.' That's from page 48 in Colin Brown's book. Aristotle believed in design and purpose in nature, and moral goodness in people derived from fulfilling your purpose, what you were designed to do. The virtues weren't desired merely for their own sake, but they were instrumental in allowing one to achieve the designed purpose. To Aristotle the virtues were habits that needed to be developed by training.
Aristotle was consistent with the Bible in that respect. In Ephesians 5:1 we are told to be 'imitators of God' and in Hebrews 13:7 we are told to look to those who have been good witnesses before us and imitate their faith. If we imitate them and turn their habits into our habits it will show up in our walk with God.
As far as purpose and design, the Bible declares that God has created everything, and there is a purpose in creation and history. That is pretty clear. There are a couple of passages in particular I can think of that relate to our discussion of Aristotle. Proverbs 22:6 says "Train up a child in the way he should go..." The passage is well know, but perhaps a little misunderstood. Certainly raising our kids to be Christian is part of that, but as I understand it the passage literally means to 'train up a child according to his bent, or tendency or character.' This involves the idea that the child was created with a purpose in mind, and our job as parents is to help foster the development of that child into the person God wants them to be, taking into account their particular gifts, etc. (Chuck, any input here on the Hebrew would be welcome.)
Also, in Matthew 21 and Mark 11 Jesus curses a fig tree that was not bearing fruit. That tree represented Israel, who was not bearing fruit. Israel had been given a purpose by God and it was not fulfilling that purpose.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Jan 9
Here's the link to the directions to Rustin's house for the ithink meeting Friday night. http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Blair&state=NE&address=1365+Voss+Drive&zipcode=68008
His address is 1365 Voss Drive, in the subdivision next to the new school. 7 PM is the time. I can't make, but that's ok. Email me if you plan on being there. If that day doesn't work out for everyone else we'll reschedule.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Meet tomorrow?
We had to reschedule our shifts at work and I have to work this Friday, when we were planning on meeting. Is anyone interested in getting together tomorrow night? Jan 4? Email me, or put up a post if you want to get together then. Cory
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