Mini-Reflection #94 (8th December 2024 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)
I don’t know about you – but when I think about life and how I want to go about living it – my basic (really basic) starting point is that I want to be a good person and I want to live a good life. I know that might sound ridiculously basic but for all the sophisticated philosophising I might have tried to do over the years, for all that this basic intention comes up against the world’s troubles and complexities, that’s a significant part of the background music of my brain, a part that has always had some sort of influence on my life choices: I want to be good and do good. And I’m pretty confident that I’m not alone in this – it’s part of why you show up at church, right?
Like I said at the start of the service, philosophers have spent centuries wrestling with this question of what it means to be good, to do good, to live a good life, and one approach to answering the question is by considering the path of virtue. As we heard in the piece by Alain de Botton that John just read, these days it might seem a bit old-fashioned (at best) to speak of virtue, or make efforts to improve our own character, even the character of our whole society. But it seems to me that this is something that we would do well to embrace in the 21st century.
It’s generally thought that consideration of virtue started with the Ancient Greeks – Plato and Aristotle – I’d say that Aristotle especially is perhaps regarded as the Godfather of virtue ethics. He wrote of the telos of life – life’s ultimate end, the purpose or point of it all – as eudaimonia. I have seen this term translated in various ways: ‘living in a way that is well-favoured by God’ is one way to put it, if you’re God-minded. More often it’s understood as ‘flourishing’ – a deep and holistic kind of happiness – living a good and meaningful life – that’s the point of existence according to Aristotle (broadly speaking). I’d suggest we might even embellish the idea further and connect it to such notions as self-realisation, fulfilling our potential, and contributing to the common good. It is not about transient pleasure but about a life that is good when considered at as a whole. And cultivation of the virtues is a significant part of the path to eudaimonia.
Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican theologian and Catholic Saint, picked up the idea of virtue in medieval times. He defined virtue as a habit or disposition ‘by which we live righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God works in us, without us.’ Aquinas was especially associated with the four Cardinal Virtues – justice, fortitude, temperance and prudence – which are depicted on the front of your order of service. This idea of there being four cardinal virtues had been around since Plato’s time but Aquinas made more of it. For Aquinas these four Cardinal Virtues are the principal moral virtues which will help us rise to the challenge of living a good and meaningful human life. Justice is the disposition that gives us concern for others and the common good. Fortitude (also known as courage) is the disposition that enables us to endure suffering, persist in hard work, and face our fears, for the sake of what is ultimately worthwhile. Temperance is the disposition of moderation and self-control (in a modern context you might think of it in relation to what we consume or give our time and attention to). Prudence is the quality that brings them all together – practical wisdom – knowing how to make good decisions about our actions and the overall direction our life is headed in. Aquinas also highlighted the three Theological Virtues that are probably very familiar to most of us – faith, hope and love – which we sang about in our opening hymn this morning. And the story of virtue ethics doesn’t end in the medieval period of course – there’s been a revival of interest among contemporary philosophers since Elizabeth Anscombe got the ball rolling again in the 1950s.
A key feature that distinguishes virtue ethics from some other ethical frameworks is that it is focuses on the person rather than the action. The central question is not ‘what should I do?’ – it’s not about making moral calculations of utility or duty when faced with a particular dilemma – but ‘what kind of person should I be?’ – this is a life-long project of personal moral development. By becoming a virtuous person, and developing good habits and dispositions, the idea is that in any given situation the next right action will just come to you as second nature. Because of the person you are you will know intuitively what needs to be done. This is not to suggest that it comes easily though – virtue ethics acknowledges the complexity of the moral life – sometimes different virtues will seem to conflict with each other and point in different directions – and part of our task is to integrate the different virtues, using practical wisdom, as we live them out.
So how do we go about becoming more virtuous? Some virtues may come naturally to each of us but others may be more of a stretch. Well, according to the philosophers, one way to think about cultivating virtue is to compare it with acquiring a practical skill or art – like learning to play the piano, for example – in general virtue is something we learn by doing. It takes conscious awareness – as the Buddha apparently once said: ‘as we think, so we become’ – and it takes a great deal of practice and persistence too. To start with it might feel as if we’re just going through the motions, but by acting ‘as if’ we are virtuous, we can get ourselves into a virtuous circle and reinforce our good intentions. Sometimes you might just have to ‘fake it till you make it’. Virtue is not just a habit of behaviour though – it needs to take root in us, to shape our character – so that in time we think, feel, desire and perceive virtuously, and can reliably discern what is good and virtuous. If we want to be a good person, and we want to live a good life, focusing on virtue is a good place to start. Amen.
Mini-Reflection by Jane Blackall