The Theological Virtues

The Cardinal Virtues: Can you figure out which is which, and why?

The Seven Deadly *Virtues*?

SP2 Prompt

William James:

I have been accused, when talking of the subject of habit, of making old habits appear so strong that the acquiring of new ones, and particularly anything like a sudden reform or conversion, would be made impossible by my doctrine. Of course, this would suffice to condemn the latter; for sudden conversions, however infrequent they may be, unquestionably do occur. But there is no incompatibility between the general laws I have laid down and the most startling sudden alterations in the way of character. New habits can be launched, I have expressly said, on condition of there being new stimuli and new excitements. Now life abounds in these, and sometimes they are such critical and revolutionary experiences that they change a man's whole scale of values and system of ideas. In such cases, the old order of his habits will be ruptured; and, if the new motives are lasting, new habits will be formed, and build up in him a new or regenerate 'nature.'

In a short paper, discuss an example (different from your first paper) of a character who is 'on the way't to a deadly sin or who is there, but who changes course, stalls or breaks the habit.  Explain the relevant sin, then explain how it is the the change occurs.  What happens?  Why does it cause the character to make such a drastic change?  Is the change believable?  Why/why not?  Explain.  Be sure along the way to make a convincing case both for the characters involvement with the sin and for his or her about-face, change of heart.

Due on Friday at midnight.

Aquinas on the Three-fold Principle

Aquinas' Article IV is remarkable.  In it, he explains what he calls "a three-fold principle" involved in human actions (i.e., properly human actions).  The first principle is reason or will (also referred to as "the superior appetite"), the second is the sensible appetite (irascible or concupiscible appetite), and the third is the exterior member (hands, feet, etc.).

One striking feature of this three-fold principle is the way in which the sensible appetites differ from the exterior members.  According to Aquinas, the exterior members unresistingly obey the orders of the appetites without any resistance.  (Of course, you could be tied up, or ill, and so on.)  The sensible appetites, however, can resist reason or the will.  This is because the sensible appetites have inclinations as part of their nature--and so it is possible for them to resist reason or will or to obey it "with repugnance".  What does it mean for the sensible appetites to have inclinations as a part of their nature?

Let's understand the point like this:  The sensible appetites are appetites, natural desires.  So the concupiscible appetite is an appetite, a natural desire, for pleasure.  My concupiscible appetite might move me to eat something, say a large and gooey slab of chocolate cake, for the pleasures it would give me both of satisfying my hunger and of taste.  But imagine that I am struggling to diet; I weigh too much.  Reason commands me not to eat the slab.  Now, in such a case, my reason may prevail--its command may be obeyed.  But since the appetite is drawn toward the cake, strongly drawn, then the appetite will likely resist the command, and, if the appetite gives in and obeys, it will do so with sorrow.  (In other words:  I will not eat the cake, but I will refrain regretfully, in disappointment, wishing I could eat it even while I do not.)  Or my concupiscible appetite may prevail; I eat the cake against reason or will--champing, chomping, crunching and craunching.

This example shows the crucial importance of virtue.  If I am a temperate man, then I will have so trained my sensible appetites that they obey reason in something like the way my exterior members do (as if reason were despotic, and as sensible appetite had no faculty of resistance of its own).  For Aquinas, virtuous action is uniform, ready and pleasurable.  So if I am temperate, and I confront the slab of cake, if reason or will commands me not to eat, I will not eat.  I will refrain without disappointment; indeed, my refraining will be pleasurable to me, insofar as it is an exercise of temperance.  I will experience no inner discord.  I will not wish to eat the cake even while I do not eat it.  The training, the habituation, that I have undergone has developed in my concupiscible appetite a habit of obeying the superior appetite with facility (reliably, readily and pleasurably)--and this habit is a virtue; it is temperance. It is "seated" in the concupiscible appetite. (The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of the irascible appetite and fortitude.)

Aquinas believes that reason, the practical intellect, is the "seat" of justice and of prudence.  But justice is seated differently, we might say, than prudence is.  Justice requires us to care about the goods of others, not only of ourselves.  It takes us beyond the limits of our individuality. Because that is so, it does not involve our natural desires in the same way as do the virtues of the sensible appetite. Prudence is the habit of judging rightly about singular human actions, of recognizing what is good in them.  It is directly connected to my natural desires and it informs all of the appetites, whether superior or sensible. (So prudence informs justice, fortitude and temperance.)

Lecture Notes: Greed, Gluttony, Lust

Gluttony

Proverb about Gluttony

The glutton digs his grave with his teeth.

The Deadly Virtues? (W. H. Auden)

"Certain sins can manifest themselves as their mirror opposites which the sinner is able to persuade himself are virtues.  Thus, Gluttony can manifest itself as Daintiness, Lust as Prudery, Sloth as Senseless Industry, Envy as Hero Worship."

Dating in the Hook-Up Culture: Lust, anyone? Anyone?

Dating in the Hook-Up Culture

Lust

The Boss on Sloth and Lust: Dancing in the Dark

I get up in the evening, and I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning, I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired, man I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

(Chorus)

You can't start a fire, you can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire even if we're just dancing in the dark

Message keeps getting clearer, radio's on and I'm moving round the place
I check myself out in the mirror I wanna change my clothes my hair my face
Man I ain't getting nowhere just sitting in a dump like this
There's something happening somewhere baby I just know that there is

(Chorus)

You sit around getting older there's a joke here somewhere and it's on me
I'll shake this world off my shoulders come baby this laughs on me
Stay on the streets of this town and they'll be carving you up alright
They say you got to stay hungry hey baby I'm just about starving tonight
I'm dying for some action I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write
this book
I need a love reaction come on now baby give me just one look

(Chorus)

Hey baby!

Life as a Thesis: Umberto Eco

So, you want to be better, be more.  Think about your life like you might a thesis.

Great little essay.

The Very Elements of Intelligence

In every sphere, we seem to have lost the very elements of intelligence: the ideas of limit, measure, degree, proportion, relation, comparison, contingency, interdependence, interrelation of means and ends. To keep to the social level, our political universe is peopled exclusively by myths and monsters; all it contains is absolutes and abstract entities. This is illustrated by all the words of our political and social vocabulary: nation, security, capitalism, communism, fascism, order, authority, property, democracy. We never use them in phrases such as: There is democracy to the extent that... or: There is capitalism in so far as... The use of expressions like "to the extent that" is beyond our intellectual capacity. Each of these words seems to represent for us an absolute reality, unaffected by conditions, or an absolute objective, independent of methods of action, or an absolute evil; and at the same time we make all these words mean, successively or simultaneously, anything whatsoever. Our lives are lived, in actual fact, among changing, varying realities, subject to the casual play of external necessities, and modifying themselves according to specific conditions within specific limits; and yet we act and strive and sacrifice ourselves and others by reference to fixed and isolated abstractions which cannot possibly be related either to one another or to any concrete facts. In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills.

Simone Weil, The Power of Words

Paper Due Sunday at Midnight

Don't forget!

Also be sure to look at all the Greed, Avarice and Lust entries here on the blog.  Required reading for class.  Try to think about the idea that all three are forms of false mastery.

"The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me": Avarice, Gluttony, Lust

Scrooge Asks for Pity

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me."
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.
"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon his knees.
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.
"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"
The finger still was there.
"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?"
For the first time the hand appeared to shake.
"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life."
The kind hand trembled.
"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"

False Mastery: Avarice, Gluttony and Lust

As I will say in class (and likely have said), we are embodied creatures -- and so creatures of circumstance and vulnerability.  We live our lives enmeshed in circumstances, most not of our choosing and most not (fully) under our control.  Yet we find ourselves free in the midst of circumstances--and we know our vulnerability:  even if we would rather not know it, and so do our best to pretend otherwise.

The greedy person, the gluttonous person, the lustful person:  at a deep level, each is engaged in an effort to overcome circumstance and vulnerability and so to forget or overcome or transcend embodiment.  We have genuine needs for material possessions, for food and drink, for love and intimacy. These needs throw us back on our circumstances and they reveal our vulnerability. 

The greedy person attempts to master circumstance and to prevent vulnerability by piling up possessions.  Like the rich fool in the parable (in Luke 12: 16ff), the greedy person looks forward to being able to say to himself, "Come, soul, thou hast goods in plenty laid up for many years..."  But the problem for the greedy person is also illustrated by the rich fool, who dies in the night after his plait of self-congratulation.  The greedy person cannot master circumstances, cannot prevent vulnerability -- no matter how much he or she accumulates.  And so nothing that is possessed is ever enough; eventually, the unruliness of circumstance or the exposure of vulnerability reveals that, and then more must be possessed, so as to regain the mastery and prevent vulnerability.  And so on.  The greedy person's mastery is always false mastery.

I will extend this to gluttony and lust soon, but I suspect you can well enough imagine how the extension will go.

Avarice (Greed)

Sloth Causing Lust--Can Sloth Co-Exist with Lust?

A student in a past class asked a great question about Sloth and the other vices it can cause, like Avarice, Gluttony and Lust.  The point of his question was whether, as a matter of fact, if Sloth causes another vice, like Lust, then the Sloth must end when Lust begins.

We might say that Sloth has to end, since the Lustful person clearly partakes of aim-driven activity, namely the search for sexual gratification.  Thus, the aimlessness characteristic of Sloth seems incompatible with the aim-driven nature of Lust.  Sloth can cause Lust.  But Sloth cannot co-exist with Lust.  We might however say that Sloth must continue to exist, because it "feeds" Lust:  Lust is a constant reaction to Sloth, and in order for that to be true, Sloth must still be present, must co-exist with Lust.  Call these two positions (A) and (B) respectively.  The student favored (A) when we last talked; I favored (B).  Who is right?

I now think neither of us is quite right, although each of us is tracking something.  To explain, I need some distinctions from Aristotle.  Aristotle distinguishes two types of potentiality and two types of actuality, but the second type of potentiality and the first type of actuality are the same.  Here's what he means.  Consider a baby born to English speakers.  It is a potential speaker of English.  That means that the child (assuming it is normal and its environment typical) will eventually acquire the ability to speak English.  But of course it cannot now speak English.  Compare to the baby a teenager who is sulky and silent.  The teenager is more than a potential speaker of English as the baby is, but, since the teenager refuses to speak, the teenager can be called a potential speaker of English in another sense.  To see that, compare the teenager to an adult who is now speaking English.  The adult is actually a speaker of English.  Compared to the adult, the teenager is potentially a speaker of English (the teenager could speak if he wanted to do so and would need nothing more than the will to do so to begin to speak).  Compared to the teenager, the baby is a potential speaker of English, but in a different sense, because the baby cannot speak if it wants to and would need training to begin to speak).  Call the baby a potential(1) speaker of the language and the teenager a potential(2) speaker.  We can also say that, compared to the baby, the teenager is an actual speaker of the language, but in a different sense from the adult, so we can also say the teenager is an actual(1) speaker of the language.  The adult is an actual(2) speaker of the language.  And so the teenager is simultaneously a potential(2) and actual(1) speaker of the language, since we can compare him to the baby or the speaking adult.  (Whew!)

I believe we can apply these sorts of distinctions to the issue between the student and me.  The person whose Lust is caused by Sloth is not merely potentially(1) Slothful.  No, he has been Slothful and in a sense still is.  But at the moment when he is actually(2) Lustful, he is not actually(2) Slothful.  Instead, he is potentially(2)/actually(1) Slothful.  He is not actually(2) Slothful, since his aim-driven Lust prevents that.  But his Lust is a constant reaction to Sloth and so Sloth must be present in more than a potential(1) sense.  It seems to me that the best thing is to say that he is actually(2) Lustful but potentially(2)/actually(1) Slothful.  He could relapse into (and likely does relapse into) Sloth at any moment, but especially when his Lust is either frustrated or sated.  This strikes me as a new view, call it (C).  It is like the student's (A), in that the Lustful person is not, while Lustful, fully actually Slothful (actually(2) Slothful).  But it is like my (B) in that the Lustful person, while not fully actually Slothful, is still in a sense Slothful (potentially(2)/actually(1) Slothful).

So I think the student and I are both wrong in a sense and right in a sense.  Often, that's how debates go in philosophy.

Green Day: Longview

Here're the lyrics to Green Day's "Longview".  I hope no one is offended by the lyrics, but the song (as you will see) rather exactly depicts Sloth.  You can watch the video here.

"Longview"

Sit around and watch the tube, but nothing's on
I change the channels for an hour or two
Twiddle my thumbs just for a bit
I'm sick of all the same old shit
In a house with unlocked doors
And I'm fucking lazy

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored I'm going blind
And I smell like shit

Peel me off this Velcro seat and get me moving
I sure as hell can't do it by myself
I'm feeling like a dog in heat
Barred indoors from the summer street
I locked the door to my own cell
And I lost the key

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored I'm going blind
And I smell like shit

I got no motivation
Where is my motivation?
No time for the motivation
Smoking my inspiration

Sit around and watch the phone, but no one's calling
Call me pathetic, call me what you will
My mother says to get a job
But she don't like the one she's got
When masturbation's lost its fun
You're fucking lonely

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored
I'm going blind
And loneliness has to suffice
Bite my lip and close my eyes
I was slipping away to paradise
Some say, "Quit or I'll go blind."
But it's just a myth

Paget on Sloth

"Yes, let us put together in thought the traits
which meet in the picture of accidie [sloth]; let us think of
it in its contrast with that brightness of spiritual joy
which plays around some lives, and makes the name-
less, winning beauty of some souls; aye, and even
of some faces; and we may recognize it, perhaps, as
a cloud that has sometimes lowered near our own
lives; as a storm that we have seen sweeping across
the sky and hiding the horizon, even though, it may
be, by God's grace only the edge of it reached to
us, only a few drops fell where we were. Heaviness,
gloom, coldness, sullenness, distaste and desultory
sloth in work and prayer, joylessness and thanklessness,
do we not know something of the threatenings,
at least, of a mood in which these meet? The mood
of days on which it seems as though we cannot
genuinely laugh, as though we cannot get rid of a
dull or acrid tone in our voice; when it seems impossible
frankly to rejoice with them that do rejoice,
and equally impossible to go freely out in any true,
unselfish sympathy with sorrow; days when, as one
has said, everything that everybody does seems
inopportune and out of good taste; days when the
things that are true and honest, just and pure, lovely
and of good report, seem to have lost all loveliness
and glow and charm of hue, and look as dismal as a
flat country in the drizzling mist of an east wind;
days when we might be cynical if we had a little
more energy in us; when all enthusiasm and confidence
of hope, all sense of a Divine impulse, flags
out of our work; when the schemes which we have
begun look stale and poor and unattractive as the
scenery of an empty stage by daylight; days when
there is nothing that we like to do when, without
anything to complain of, nothing stirs so readily in
us as complaint. Oh, if we know anything at all
of such a mood as this, let us be careful how we think
of it, how we deal with it; for perhaps it may not be
far from that sorrow of the world which, in those who
willingly indulge and welcome and invite its
presence, worketh death."  From The Spirit of Discipline

Sloth

Anger

Office Hours, Sorta (Coffee and the Sins)

I will head to a coffee shop after class today.  If you want to talk about SP1, or about the class, or about philosophy, or...basically...whatever, just tag along.  I will do the same tomorrow

and may have some afternoon time both days if right after class does not work for you.

Rickaby, Human Acts (Required Reading For Wednesday)

Here're a few pages (impefectly copied but readable) from Rickaby's *Four-Square*.  It offers a succint explanation of what a *human act* consists in.  This extends my response to Emily's good question on Monday.

Essay Assigment

Find some pop culture item, book, TV episode (or show), movie or song, that explores, or exhibits or somehow importantly involves a deadly sin we have discussed (Pride, Envy, Anger).  Here's the catch:  the item cannot name the sin as such (e.g., recall how Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" never actually names envy in it.)

In a short essay, 2-4 pp., typed and double-spaced, first discuss the deadly sin as exactly as you can, making clear what it is and how it affects those who are in the grip of it.

Second, explain your pop culture item, assuming that I am not familiar with it.  Explain how the deadly sin is involved.  Explore whether the item shows awareness or links between the sin and others, or causes of the sin, etc.

Third, and finally, evaluate the way the item involves the sin, and explain:  does the item show special insight into the nature of the sin?  does it teach us something important about the sin or about its causes or consequences?  Is there a mistake or confusion of some sort in the item's engagement with the sin (if so, what is it, and why is it a mistake or confusion)?

Due Date TBA

The Obsessive Nature of the Sins; Sins and Self-Knowledge

One thing I will be trying to highlight--particularly in our "Phenomenology" sections--is the way in which each of the deadly sins can take over a life.  Each sin creates or requires a particular kind of (morbid) preoccupation--with self in the case of Pride, with others in the case of Envy.  Because of this, each of the sins crowds out other things in our life, including crucially many good things.  Pride leaves us little time or energy for thoughts of things other than self.  Envy leaves us little for thoughts of things other than others.  (And of course we are not, when Envious, thinking of others in a good way!)

It is the fact that the sins can take over a life that makes them so deadly (at least in a this-wordly sense).  To be in the grip of a vice, like Pride, is to be misfit for happiness.  

One difference between Pride and Envy is that whereas Pride is typically invisible and hides from us, Envy is not typically invisible, does not hide from us.  (Although we try to hide it from others.)  We might put the point like this:  Pride typically eludes introspection; envy typically does not.

This is an important point.  Let me add to it.  We can be Proud and not know it, even in cases where we are not guilty of willful self-deception.  It is just hard to recognize our Pride.  But if we are Envious and do not know it, I think we are willfully self-deceived.  In other words, we are actively hiding our Envy from ourselves; after all, it, unlike Pride, does not hide on its own.  Envy is not hard to recognize unless we are working to hide it from ourselves.  Of course, we can try to hide our Pride, too, if we recognize it.  But often we do not have to do that.  Pride hides itself.  (We do not typically come to know we are Proud by introspection.  We come to know it typically as what the philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, called "acquired character".  That means we come to know it in ourselves by watching ourselves as we might watch a third person, and noting, observing, the sorts of things we do and say.)

Envy

"Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister": Envy

Reading for Wednesday

Wednesday reading. Fairlie on Envy.

Farlie on Pride

Reading for Monday.

Philosophy Class as Conversation

If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why – the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point.  --C. S. Lewis

I position this remark of Lewis' here to remind, or perhaps to tell, all of you that you need to be thinking of our class as an on-going conversation.  What I am saying on any day has a special point, one that you can only fully appreciate by having been attentive to and actively remembering what was said on earlier days.  I fear that many of you understand classes as a set of atoms, largely, maybe even wholly, self-contained.  You come, you hear, you (mostly) forget.  But then you end up like the person who enters the conversation at eleven o'clock when the conversation began at eight.  You miss the real bearing of what is being said.

Each day of class should seem to you like the resumption of a conversation, one whose breaking-off point you remember and whose earlier stages you can bring to bear on what is currently being said.

Pride

Why It Matters If You Are Moral? Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard was a philosopher who taught at Southern California.  He died recently.  Here is a nice paper of his that captures much of what we are doing this term in a brief form.

William James on Habit

Handout

          PHIL 1020 Introduction to Ethics

       Summer 2019 Barcelona

Kelly Dean Jolley

kellydeanjolley@gmail.com

I normally respond to email within 24 hours.  

Office Hours:  TBA.

Required Reading:  

CS Lewis, The Abolition of Man

Chaucer, Parson's Tale

Aristotle Handout

Aquinas Handout

Plutarch Handouts

Suggested Reading: 

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Aquinas, On the Virtues in General, The Cardinal Virtues

Dante, Purgatory

Spenser, The Faerie Queene

(other suggestions will be made during class)

                                                             

Assignments:  

Attendance: 25%
Short Papers:  25%@
Quizzes: 25%

Quizzes:  Usually, they will be given unannounced; and, usually, they will focus on the assigned reading for the day they are given, but on occasion, they will focus on past readings or class discussions.  

Requirements:  Students are required to do all reading by the date assigned, and to come to class ready to participate in class discussion.  Specific readings will be announced as the course progresses 

Cell phones must be turned OFF before class (not merely silenced or set to vibrate).  No cell phone should ever be visible during class.  Students may take notes on computers or iPads, etc., but if I see that notes are not being taken or that something other than note-taking is also happening, I will demand that the computer be shut down.  Lectures may not be recorded without my pre-approval.  

Students needing accommodations should arrange a meeting during the first week of classes, either during office hours or at an arranged time.  Please bring the Accommodations Memo and Instructor Verification.  We will discuss the necessary accommodations at the meeting.  If a student needs accommodations but does not have a Memo, he or she should make an appointment with The Program for Students with Disabilities, 1244 Haley Center, 844-2096.

Course Description and Objectives:  This course will introduce students to ethics via careful philosophical investigation of the virtues and the vices.  Central to the class are the classical conceptions of the seven deadly sins/vices (Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust) and the four cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance).  Each of the sins/vices and each of the virtues will be investigated.   Successful students will complete the course with an understanding of the nature and structure of each of the vices and virtues.  Successful students will also be able to apply this understanding to their own lives, seeing how the understanding can guide conduct, and aid development as a person.  Finally, successful students will improve critical reading skills, and acquire the ability to isolate, reconstruct and judge philosophical arguments.

Course Schedule Very Tentative

Abolition 1

Abolition 2

Pride 
Envy 

Anger 

Sloth

Avarice,  Gluttony 
Lust 

Aristotle, Plutarch, Aquinas

Prudence

Justice
Fortitude, Temperance