Duns Scotus: On the Pursuit of Happiness

DUNS SCOTUS EXPLORES THE ISSUE OF HAPPINESS, and, in so doing, critiques the Aristotelian and Thomistic eudaimonistic doctrines. Scotus asks the question: must happiness be desired necessarily? Is happiness the motor which drives all our willing?

I answering this question, Scotus relies on his basic distinction between the "natural will" and the "free will," a distinction we have covered in prior postings discussing Duns Scotus's moral philosophy. One can review this distinction by accessing the posting Duns Scotus: Will, Free and Natural. For Scotus, the issue of happiness as the end of man is influenced by the matrix of his distinction between the natural, unelicited, and ever-present will and a free, elicited will. The former necessarily is inclined towards its perfection through the affectio commodi, the desire for its own advantage. The latter is not so disposed, as it seeks something beyond its own perfection, a good beyond its own good, through the affectio jusititiae, the desire or affection toward justice. That latter wills its own good necessarily, the latter only contingently.

Blessed Duns Scotus

In reference to the natural will: it always and necessarily seeks happiness as defined by its own perfection:

If it is the natural rather than the free appetite [or will] that is referred to [in the question of whether happiness is desired above all else and is the rationale or impetus behind the will], then the reply to the question is clear, for the [natural] will necessarily or perpetually seeks happiness, and this in regard to a particular happiness.

That it does so necessarily, is obvious, because a nature could not remain a nature without being inclined to its own perfection. Take away this inclination and you destroy the nature. But this natural appetite is nothing other than an inclination of this sort to its proper perfection; therefore, the will as nature necessarily wills its perfection, which consists above all in happiness, and it desires such by its natural appetite.
....
[I]f the will as nature is determined necessarily to seek happiness, then as nature it seeks it above all.

That it seeks happiness in particular in this fashion, is evident, because this appetite is directed toward a perfection in which the will really perfected; but real perfection is not something general or universal, but something singular. Therefore, it desires happiness in particular.

Ordinatio IV, suppl., dist. 49, qq. 9-10 (Wolter, 156-57)

Scotus next asks whether the free will, as distinguished from the natural will, necessarily wills happiness, both in general and in particular. His answer departs from the Thomistic formula which holds that the free will necessarily seeks happiness and good in general, but not necessarily in particular. In the Thomistic view, all men are compelled--determined--to seek the universal or general good, but are not so similarly compelled--they are free--to chose particular goods. Though a particular good is chosen under the light of the general good, the choice is not compelled: and for this reason, man is free to select a particular good which, in fact, may not be to his good, may not, in the particular instance, lead to his perfection, to his good, to happiness. It is this distinction between the determined general inclination toward the good and the free will in choosing the particular that allows the Thomist to preserve free will, but also to preserve the notion that all men seek good and happiness.

Scotus opposes himself to this doctrine. He sees the distinction between the general and the particular good, the former desired willy nilly, the latter involving free choice, as one involving a contradiction. In his view, the particular good or particular happiness involves good or happiness in a sort of concentrated or more perfect fashion, and if the general good compels necessarily, then it follows that particular good, which is the general good found in a more concentrated or more perfect way, compels necessarily. The particular good ought to have even greater "pull" on the will than the general good. Moreover, to Scotus, it seems that the will involves an inclination to particular goods, and less strongly one to general goods, and so if the will's inclination is necessarily to good in general, it follows that the will necessarily is inclined to good in particular. The inclination toward the general good, when informed by the intellect as to a particular good being a concretization of the general good, would appear to compel necessarily.

Scotus therefore offers a different approach. In his view, the will does not will necessarily the general, but freely the particular good. In his view, the will contingently wills both the general and the particular good. Man contingently wills both happiness in general and happiness in a particular instance.

[T]he will of a pilgrim in this life for the most part wants happiness, whether known in general or in particular, namely, where the intellect judges or asserts without doubt that happiness is to be found in this particular. Nevertheless, it does not of necessity will happiness either in general or in particular. . . . I say therefore that the will contingently wills the end and happiness both in general and in particular, although in most cases it seeks happiness in general, and also in particular when the intellect has no prior doubt that happiness consists in this particular thing.

Ordinatio IV, suppl., dist. 49, qq.9-10 (Wolter, 158)

The reason why the free will only contingently wills both general and particular happiness is because the free will for the most part follows the inclinations of the natural appetite or will. The natural will necessarily wills happiness, and so for the most part the necessary compulsion of the natural will informs the free will. "For it is impossible," Scotus says, that the free will " be habituated or inclined to will something to any greater degree than it is inclined by its natural appetite." As an example, Scotus points to a just person who confronts martyrdom: one's death is difficult to chose precisely because it goes against the habit or inclinations of our natural desire to preserve our own life.

While the free will in general follows the natural will, it is not compelled to do so. It may act in a manner that opposes itself to the natural will, and it may oppose itself either by choosing something against authentic happiness (e.g., hedonistic pleasure) or something more noble than its natural perfection (e.g., martyrdom). Therefore the free will only contingently wills its general and particular happiness in accordance with its natural inclination. The will is not forced to will the happiness towards which its nature inclines it.

The contingency arises from the fact that one can fail to want something because of happiness. This can be done negatively, that is, this can be done because one can seek something without considering the ultimate end of happiness. In such a case, happiness has no bearing on choice. Moreover, something can be chosen without ordering it towards happiness, without fitting it in to happiness, and at such a time, happiness is not a relevant determinant of choice. Finally, one can oppose authentic happiness and pleasure, and can chose the latter over the former. As an example, a person with faith can conceive happiness as sharing the beatific vision in God the Trinity, and at the same time think of the pleasures of fornication which are entirely opposed to the first happiness. If he continued to think of fornication, though it is not ordered to happiness, he could will to seek it, chose it, and engage in an act that contradicts his own good, his own happiness. This establishes, in Scotus's view, that one is never compelled to act, either in general or in particular, to choose good. Though the free will in the run-of-the-mill situation conforms itself to the natural will, and so generally and in particular seeks its happiness, it always remains radically free to oppose itself to the authentic good, and so will something that is not ordered to its own perfection or happiness. It also remains radically free to chose something greater than its own good, and so go beyond its own nature.

In summary, for Scotus, one is never compelled to seek happiness in general necessarily. Both in general and in particular, one's happiness is always something contingently sought by one's free will. Though one's natural will is necessarily inclined to both its general and particular good, and one's free will generally follows, it is not necessarily the case that the free will has to follow the lead of the natural will. The free will's activity is contingent and remains always free--to chose something that is opposed to our natural happiness, either because it seeks something that is more base than our natural happiness (and sins), or it seeks something that is above and beyond our natural happiness (the supernatural life).

Ignorance of the Wrong-Restless Hearts' Final Rest

THE NATURAL LAW IS INTENDED to be man's guide to a natural perfection, and this regardless of time, place, and circumstance.* In particulars, it is a highly flexible law, even if in essentials it is an unchanging and immutable law. Human nature remains the same--whether found in a Greek monk holed up on Mount Athos, a Jewish Wall Street broker in New York City, a Venezuelan beauty queen participating in the Miss Universe pageant, an Arab pilgrim on hajj in Mecca circumabulating counterclockwise the Ka'aba, or a Chinese man floating in his Junk in Hong Kong harbor. The normative guidance the natural law provides, both in general and in particular, as we go from man inchoate (in potentia) to man realized (in actu) is found in the natural law's precepts. "The precepts of the law," Bertke says, "are the lights placed in the labyrinth of life guiding human acts to the right paths and turns. It is of the precepts' nature to guide man to a correct realization of his capacities, to inform him what must be done if he is to arrive at his ultimate end." Bertke, 24. It is the precepts that help us judge aright what is the fitting and right means to our ultimate end.

As commands, the precepts inform and guide the intellect and the will, since both intellect and will are involved in any human act. Though guiding both intellect and will, the precepts principally are commands or norms of reason, not merely arbitrary commands, and by acting in accordance with these precepts of reason we are properly fitted into the great order of the cosmos, in harmony with our own nature and with God's plan for us in any particular time and place:

By following the precepts of the natural law man assumes his correct relations to everything else in the realm of being; order is brought out of the apparent chaos of many conflicting tendencies. The conflict between matter and spirit inherent in the complexity of man's nature, is resolved by obedience to their mandates, and harmony in relation to his prime purpose in [his natural and supernatural] life is obtained.

Bertke, 25.**

The precepts of the natural moral law oblige, and as obligations they impose themselves upon man. But they impose themselves upon man's freedom, seeking not to curb it or frustrate it, but to guide its use properly. So the natural moral law is an obligation in the order of freedom. It is not a restriction on freedom. And it certainly is not a law of physical necessity.

Sts. Thomas, Augustine, and Teresa of Avila
God alone suffices

Though there is a necessity to obey the natural moral law, that necessity is moral, not physical. The necessity is not a necessity of must (as if we have no choice or are compelled to obey it), but is a necessity of ought (since the obligation imposes itself upon our freedom and orders its proper use). The precepts of the natural law are oughts which impose upon themselves as an obligation because they are ordinations of reason, and not merely arbitrary dictats. Since they are based upon reason, the precepts carry their own reason for their obligation. It is self-evident that a life in accord with reason, a life fitted with reality and which promotes our very being and reflects who we are, is superior to a life that is irrational and which is not fitted with reality and contradicts or lessens our being and who we are. We are meant to flourish, our whole being inclines towards its flourishing, and obedience to the precepts of the natural law assures that flourishing, whereas disobedience to those precepts would result in our not flourishing. The obligation is then plain, as it is a matter of simply living right or reasonably instead of living wrong or irrationally. Of being rather than not being.

The precepts can be view under an active mode or a passive mode depending upon if we look at them from the perspective of the one commanding or the one commanded:

In the case of the natural law the active command is an act of the divine intellect; passsively, it is the actual ordination as perceived by the creature.

Bertke, 25.

The passive mode of the natural law (God's command as perceived by us) can be known without knowledge of God, so knowledge of at least the foundational precepts of the natural law can be known self-evidently, without knowledge of God, which knowledge is not self-evident. Similarly, the natural law binds us self-evidently, regardless of whether we have derived from our observation of reality and application of reason (or from Faith) that there is a God who has promulgated such a law.

It is a curious fact that man is a restless creature. No created thing fully satisfies him. Glory, honor, power, wealth, health, pleasure, the development of all natural powers of our soul or the possession of any and all created things do not, it would seem, satisfy.† But it would appear implausible for man to have no end, that he is condemned to be dissatisfied, and so there is implied in man's very restlessness that there is something he ought to seek beyond created things that will satisfy him, that ultimate good for which he yearns, which is God alone, his summum bonum, his finis ultimus, his plenary good, his ultimate end in which he alone finds repose and perfect joy and happiness.

I answer that, It is impossible for any created good to constitute man's happiness. For happiness is the perfect good, which lulls the appetite altogether; else it would not be the last end, if something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, i.e. of man's appetite, is the universal good; just as the object of the intellect is the universal true. Hence it is evident that naught can lull man's will, save the universal good. This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone; because every creature has goodness by participation. Wherefore God alone can satisfy the will of man, according to the words of Psalm 102:5: "Who satisfieth thy desire with good things." Therefore God alone constitutes man's happiness.

Respondeo dicendum quod impossibile est beatitudinem hominis esse in aliquo bono creato. Beatitudo enim est bonum perfectum, quod totaliter quietat appetitum, alioquin non esset ultimus finis, si adhuc restaret aliquid appetendum. Obiectum autem voluntatis, quae est appetitus humanus, est universale bonum; sicut obiectum intellectus est universale verum. Ex quo patet quod nihil potest quietare voluntatem hominis, nisi bonum universale. Quod non invenitur in aliquo creato, sed solum in Deo, quia omnis creatura habet bonitatem participatam. Unde solus Deus voluntatem hominis implere potest; secundum quod dicitur in Psalmo CII, qui replet in bonis desiderium tuum. In solo igitur Deo beatitudo hominis consistit.

S.T. IaIIae, q. 2, a. 8.

This spiritual inquietude and its satisfaction is classically rendered by St. Augustine in his Confessions: fecisti nos, domine, ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te. You have made us Lord for you, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. St. Thomas succinctly stated: Deus solus satiat.†† The mystic, St. Theresa of Avila put it wonderfully well in her "Bookmark": Solo Dios basta! Only God suffices.

Nada te turbe,
nada te espante;
todo se pasa,
Dios no se muda.
La pacientia todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene nada la falta:
solo Dios basta.

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

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*We say natural perfection, not supernatural perfection, which, without thereby deprecating his natural perfection, is what man's ultimate calling. We know, not through nature, but through revelation, however, that the natural law also has a tutorial or preparatorial task, as the natural perfection is fulfilled or perfected by the gift of Grace. While compliance with the natural law is necessary for salvation, it is not sufficient for salvation. Moreover, man's perfection is, as we know through revelation, found ultimately in a union with God, a participation in God's very being, a gift and destiny which is wholly supernatural.
**Again, this harmony will not be achieved without grace, given man's current state of disharmony, his Fallenness. Nature, while not entirely corrupted by man's Fall, is a natura corrupta or natural lapsa, and is not a natura integra, and the only means to overcome the corrupt or lapsed nature and obtain a measure of its original integrity is through the natural law and through habitual supernatural grace. In this life, however, that integrity is never fully restored, even after sanctifying grace, and full integrity awaits us only after death and resurrection of the body in glorified form.
***E.g., S.T. IaIIae, q. 98, art. 6, ad 2: "A law should not be given save to the people, since it is a general precept." q. 90, art. 2, c. "Consequently, since the law is chiefly ordained to the common good, any other precept in regard to some individual work, must needs be devoid of the nature of a law, save in so far as it regards the common good." The law or precept, however, is also concerned with particularities: "A command denotes an application of a law to matters regulated by the law. Now the order to the common good, at which the law aims, is applicable to particular ends. And in this way commands are given even concerning particular matters." q. 90, art. 2, ad 1.
†This is beautifully analyzed by St. Thomas in his "treatise on happiness," found in the Summa Theologiae, to which, because of its length, the reader is referred. S.T. IaIIae, q. 2 (English); S.T IaIIae, q. 2 (Latin).
††"Deus enim solus satiat, et in infinitum excedit: et inde est quod non quiescit nisi in Deo, Augustinus, in I Conf.: fecisti nos, domine, ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te." St. Thomas, In Symbolum Apostolorum, a. 12.

Contra Consequentialismum: Happiness and Basic Goods

“HUMAN LIFE IS MULTIFACETED, and human appetites diverse, so too the good for man, or happiness, has many aspects." Oderberg, 40-41. Oderberg, like any eudaimonistic moralist worth his salt, focuses on man's happiness, his flourishing, which he defines as the "tendency of a thing towards some action or operation for the securing of some good." Oderberg, 41. It may be that these goods, and their combination, are well-nigh infinite. But morality is principally focused not on the myriad subordinate goods and their even more myriad combinations. "[T]he primary concern of moral theory is the most general distinguishable features of human activity that make up human flourishing . . . and there is no reason to think this list should be infinite." Oderberg, 41. Thankfully, we can count these. Among the most important, what we may classify as fundamental goods necessary for our happiness, are:

• Life in the biological and physiological sense is perhaps the most important since it is the foundational sine qua non of any other good. It is senseless to talk about the good of a corpse, or a dismembered fetus, or a euthanized senior. The fundamental good of life also includes a healthy and integrated existence, including psychological and spiritual health.
  
• The pursuit of truth or the acquisition of knowledge. The knowledge in question includes the broad gamut of knowledge. Knowledge is not reserved for the academic in his ivory tower, but includes the farmer and his knowledge of the seasons and of his crops, and the whole slew of knowledge in between and beyond, including the most sublime knowledge relating to the supreme Truth, God. One of the more significant truths or knowledge is the true knowledge of the good. "Without knowledge of the good, the good life as a whole could not even begin to be lived." Oderberg, 42.
• Man is as much a social animal as he is a rational animal. He binds himself in all sorts of groups. This general good may be broadly identified as the good of friendship, which would include friendship in the narrow sense as well as friendship "in the broader sense of social living, in particular living in a self-governing community, or perhaps state, whose sole purpose is to promote the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of its members." Oderberg, 43. To be happy, man must be expected to live life in a "perfect society" or "perfect community."*
  
• Related to society, but distinct from it, and essential toward human flourishing is the good of the family. The family is the fundamental cell where other goods, such as life (procreation, sustenance) and knowledge (education) are naturally promoted, especially in the early years of human formation.
  
• Work and play are are the yin and yang as it were of human endeavor. "[W]ork and play are but two aspects of a single component of the happy life and are plausibly distinguished from other goods, with work at its best a form of play and vice versa, although they both serve, of course, in the promotion of other goods such as life, knowledge, and friendship." Oderberg, 43.
• The appreciation of beauty, both in nature and through art, seems to be something unique to man, and an essential feature of his happiness.
• The happiness of man must include religious belief and practice. Even scientific man--who has purposefully stifled this desire through an erroneous philosophy in a sort of perverse spiritual anorexia nervosa--cannot rid himself of the sense of wonder. Even the materialist atheist Carl Sagan's "informed worship" is nothing other than the scientific man's religious desire peeping out from under the blanket of his materialistic philosophy as it were. When denied spiritual food, man's spiritual stomach grumbles. Naturally, religious belief and practice is tied to truth, and so happiness is obtained, not from any religious belief and practice, but from true or authentic religious belief and practice: orthodoxy and orthopraxis. Satanism, or the worship of Huitzilopochtli, to take extreme examples, may be said to be obviously unfulfilling. They do not lead to happiness, but to the misery of thoraxes without hearts, and brains without God.
  

No Happiness in Worshiping a False God

In our next posting, we will discuss Oderberg's view on virtues. But we should close by distinguishing between means and ends. Oderberg observes: "Every human good can be, and often is, used as an instrument [means] for the pursuit of some other good." Oderberg, 44. Some goods are purely instrumental, that is, purely means to another good (as, for example, properly, money should be). But though almost all goods can be instrumental goods, or means to another good, we must not use the basic or fundamental goods in this fashion. "[N]o basic good is solely instrumental in character." Oderberg, 44. This is a sort of categorical imperative.

If any of the basic, fundamental goods are "turned way from, rejected, or compromised in general, life goes badly for the person who does so. And often, though not always, if a good is turned away from, rejected, or compromised in a given instance or circumstance, life again is not lived well." Oderberg, 44-45. There is some play in the joints of human living, so it may be, and in practice one experiences, that one instance of turning away from, rejecting, or compromising a basic good won't make a man's bones come apart, or the whole world or all society fall apart. So a solitary man may visit a prostitute, engage in premarital sex, or look at some pornography and engage in self-abuse in violation of a basic good (which is evil enough), but society and the conjugal union and institution of the family will persist and survive such particular assault. But if society as a whole, or even in significant part, rejects the basic value of family life, and a substantial number of men engage in prostitution, premarital sex, and pornography and self-abuse, in assault of the value of family life, social life will go very badly indeed. A society may be able to tolerate a small number of atheists, but it is doubtful that a society of atheists will long survive. For both individual and society, there is a vast difference between sin and a life of sin, between sinning (which we all do) and living in sin (which not all of us do). The first is a wrongful act, the latter is a habit and prolonged.

When a man, or for that matter, a society, lives a life of sin, he heads, in his self-loathing and in his moral dissolution, toward sure self-destruction. In his walk in the darkness he progressively desensitizes himself to sin, and loses the sense of sin.

Lack of Happiness Reflected in Music

In the words of the imbalanced and unhappy Hank Williams, III's song "Life of Sin," where the misery of seeking wrong goods, and doing so habitually, reflects itself in both screaming lyric and a metallic, punkish, inharmonious musical grind:

Well I'm runnin' down the road about a hundred and five
Don't care if I live, I just wanna die
Searching for a gal who wants to keep me alive
Satan's in the backseat givin' me advice again
Livin' a life of sin.

To be in habitual sin, and not to care, and then not to even know that one is mired in it. The loss of the sense of sin. This is modern man's tragedy, for without the sense of sin he cannot be saved.**

We will not be happy until all the Hank Williams III's in the world learn to sing Gregorian Chant.
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*As we have noted in the past, the term "perfect society" (societas perfecta or communitas perfecta) does not mean some kind of "utopia," but rather is a term of art meaning a group that is self-sufficient or independent in its realm and has all necessary resources and conditions required to achieve its purposes. For a discussion on the notion of a "perfect society," see our prior post St. Thomas Aquinas: Definition of Law, Authority. In discussing this point, Oderberg rightly criticizes Hegel's absolute inversion of the purpose of the state. Hegel states: "Man owes his entire existence to the state, and has his being within it alone. Whatever worth and spiritual reality he possesses are his solely by virtue of the state." (allen Wert, den der Mensch hat, alle geistige Wirklichkeit, er allein durch den Staat hat). "On the contrary," Oderberg points out, "man does not exist for the state--the state is not his extrinsic ultimate end. Rather the state exists for man, in order to enable him to flourish, and so is good for man." Oderberg, 43.
**Pius XII famously stated that "the sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin." Pope Pius XII, Radio Message to the U.S. National Catechetical Congress in Boston (October 26,1946): Discorsi e Radiomessaggi VIII (1946) 288. Pope John Paul II gave an extended reflection on this in his Reconciliatio et paenitentia, No. 18 [As a result of a typographical error, the Vatican text wrongfully attributes the statement to Pius XI, although the footnote reference shows the error]. Pope John Paul II observed how a recapture of the sense of sin by modern man is essential for curing modern man's ills.

Contra Consequentialismum: The Good

AΓΑΘΟΥ ΤΙΝΟΣ ΕΦΙΕΣΘΑΙ ΔΟΚΕΙ, all things tend toward good, Aristotle famously stated in the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics (1094a). With the notion of the the "good" every ethical theory must begin. An understanding of the notion of the good as it pertains to man may be obtained through observation and common sense.

Starting with inanimate objects--a rock--the notion that things are going well or badly for the rock make little sense to us. It seems that inanimate objects have no appetite, no yearning for something, and so we cannot measure whether such appetite has been satisfied or not so as to determine whether it is going well or not for that rock.

This perception changes if we progress toward living things, starting with vegetative life. Let us take an simple organisms such as bacteria or larger organisms such as plants, a citrus tree, for example. We can observe that it makes sense to talk about things going well or badly for them. Bacteria, like our citrus tree, can thrive, flourish under certain conditions, and other conditions can be seriously impeding and bring about disease and death or cessation of their function. We encounter with these that there are certain principles or laws that govern their needs and assure their health so that they can reproduce and propagate more of their species. In most instances, we can easily detect whether a tree is flourishing or whether it is not.

Which is the healthy leaf?

Moving up the ladder of life, we come to animals, complex beings which enjoy locomotion, which feel pain and pleasure, which form social groupings, which seem to take a more active role vis-à-vis their environment. These animals, and their well-being, are also governed by laws or principles similar to the plant kingdom, but significantly more complex. The following of these laws of their nature assures that they flourish. Again, it is generally easy to distinguish an animal that is flourishing versus one that is diseased, unhealthy, or disabled.

Man appears to be distinguishable from other animals by reason of his rational nature. Despite the fact that man shares a significant world with the brute animals, it seems indisputable that he has some faculty--we call it reason--that sets him apart from all other living creatures. Among the animals, he is alone, he is unique. It is for this reason that Aristotle defined man as a rational animal, and animal whose uniqueness is his rational nature.

It would seem that just like all creatures have laws that must be followed if they are to flourish, to be well, that man would have such laws, and that such laws would govern both the nature that he shares with the vegetative and animal life below him as well as the nature that is uniquely his. The following of these laws assures that creature's wellness. Additionally, we note that any activity of man--playing the piano, weaving a rug, churning butter--can be done well or badly and aims toward some good.

We need not multiply examples, since the general principle is clear: everything that a person does, everything, aims at something deemed good or worthwhile, whether that good be intrinsic to the activity (performing it well) or extrinsic (for some other objective deemed good); and in nearly all cases, the good aimed at is a combination of both the intrinsic and the extrinsic.

Oderberg, 37-38.

We all do not play the piano or churn butter, but we all live life. In the art of life, in which all men partake, what is a life lived well? That question is answered by another: what is the good, intrinsic or extrinsic, toward which man's life, the rational animal's life, in particular the life of his reason, aims? For whether the good is achieved means whether we are living well.

Now the good "is a single property capable of definition as that which satisfies a thing's natural appetites, or that which fulfills a things nature." Oderberg, 37. What, then, is man's good, the ultimate good toward which his life aims? This good may be defined as "the living of the human life in all its fullness, that is, taking into account all the tendencies, capabilities, and characteristics (such as rationality and freedom) of the human being." Oderberg, 38. The answer to this question must consider all things, "because when we reason about living well we must take in the whole of what a person is and does, not simply this or that aspect." Oderberg, 39.

It is an unfortunate reality that we can make mistakes about the good. In ordering the ensemble of goods to fashion the good, actual or seeming, we can make mistakes in our selection of one of the goods, mistaking an apparent good for an actual good, or we can make mistakes in balancing them, in hierarchizing then, in putting one good above the other, when it should be below another. Moreover, men, even if they know the good without mistake, are capable of working against it. "[I]t is possible--and common--for people to choose evil over good, and to do so knowingly." Oderberg, 39. However, "it is not possible for [men] to choose evil because it is evil." Oderberg, 39. In other words, they chose an evil because it is seen as having "a good aspect, real or apparent, as well as [in addition to] and evil one." Oderberg, 39. "[T]he ubiquitous and complex problem of weakness of will, a distinctively human phenomenon, exemplifies the activity of doing something bad for the sake of usually a short-term and transient satisfaction." Oderberg, 40.

Given all these factors, knowing the good in man's life, and whether he is living well, is consequently much harder to detect than whether the plant of a citrus tree is healthy or diseased. But this complex question is morality's bailiwick. "Morality . . . is concerned primarily with the study and elucidation of what is good and bad for human beings, and hence with what are good and bad actions, choices, and motives." Oderberg, 40.

Is there a monolithic--a single, one and complete--answer to the question amidst the "immense diversity of human endeavors, pursuits, choices, and so on"? Oderberg, 40. Does man have but one supreme end, or is he like Thomas Nagle's combination corkscrew and bottle-opener, a creature with more than one end, more than one use?

Is man a multi-faceted combo corkscrew bottle-opener?

Is man multi-purposed and therefore multi-ended and therefore multi-gooded? Ah, but the question is a false one because the entirety of man's variety and experience can be accommodated if the question is correctly framed.

The good is monolithic, both for all things to which goodness can be attributable at all, and for humans in particular, only in the sense that there is a single property, namely operating well or in according with a thing's nature. For human beings, this is simply living well as human beings. The property, however, consists in a complex of other properties that together mark out the distinctively human life. More precisely, it is happiness that is the good of man. ("Flourishing" is also an appropriate word.) . . . . It is happiness for which we all strive, which we all want from life (at least on rational reflection), and which consists in the well-lived life in which our appetites, capacities, and potentialities as human beings are satisfied in an harmonious, well-ordered way.

Oderberg, 40.

Happiness is thus the monolithic good of man. "Perhaps no more truistic thesis can be found in moral theory." Oderberg, 40.

But isn't this to trade one question for another? "What is man's good?" for "What is man's happiness?" It appears so.

So we must now ask, and try to answer, the question: What is it that makes man happy?

Leo Strauss and Natural Law: Locke and the Pursuit of Happiness

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS is, for an American, a given, a moral and political shibboleth. The "pursuit of happiness" has made it into one of our organic, institutional documents, to wit, the Declaration of Independence. There is, of course, a perfectly classical way to view the "pursuit of happiness." The "happiness" ethics, the eudaemonistic ethics of Aristotle and St. Thomas, with their objective basis, could easily inform us as to what the "pursuit of happiness" means, and all would be well. But Americans have taken the "pursuit of happiness" to mean something entirely different, something inherently subjective.* How much of this, if any, is Locke's fault?

It is difficult, of course, ever to answer such questions as the imposition of blame for ideas. No one can measure the human cost arising from bad ideas. Some of them are horrible. Ideas such as national socialism, communism, Maoism, antisemitism, radical Islam have horrible costs attached to them. Locke's ideas, we may be sure, had a human cost much, much lower than these vicious counterparts. But at least we can look into Locke's ideas of happiness and make an educated guess and what sort of moral cost, if nothing else, such ideas have.

For Locke, there was precious little in man that was innate. Certainly, no principle of natural law was innate. Locke rejected the notion of universal law: he saw "no rules of the law of nature 'which, as practical principles ought, do continue constantly to operate and influence all our actions without ceasing [and which] may be observed in all persons and all ages, steady and universal.'" Strauss, 226 (quoting Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding). The desire for happiness was an exception; for Locke, this desire was innate:

Nature . . . has put into man a desire of happiness, and an aversion to misery; these, indeed, are innate practical principles."

Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I, iii, 3. This desire for happiness, and the pursuit of happiness to which it gives rise, is not the source of duty (as the case would be if it were "law"). It is, however, the source of right, and so, for Locke, "the desire for happiness and the pursuit of happiness have the character of an absolute right, a natural right." Strauss, 226. This coupling of Lockean aversion to an innate natural law with advancement of the notion of the innate desire as the source of right means, in short, that "[t]here is, then an innate natural right, while there is no innate natural duty. . . . Since the right of nature is innate, whereas the law of nature is not, the right of nature is more fundamental than the law of nature and is the foundation of the law of nature." Strauss, 226-27. There really is no law in a "state of nature," since in that state, "any man may do what he thinks fit." Strauss, 228 (citing Locke passim). This state of lawlessness, is of course, highly unpalatable, as it exposes man-in-a-state-of-nature to constant danger. He seeks peace so as to preserve his life so as to satisfy his desire for happiness and therefore contracts with his fellows for a State.

The contract of the individuals actually concerned with their self-preservation [and their pursuit of happiness built thereon]--not the contract of the fathers qua fathers or divine appoint or an end of man that is independent of the actual wills of all individuals--creates the whole power of society: "the supreme power in every commonwealth [is] but the joint power of every member of society."

Strauss, 228-29 (quoting Locke's Treatise).

One of the most notable features of Locke's doctrines is its emphasis on property rights. It is part of the Lockean trilogy: life, liberty, and estate or property. To that we shall turn to next in our last blog entry on the Straussian analysis of Locke. Again, Locke departs from any classical or Christian concept of natural law.

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*On this issue, I heartily recommend Deal W. Hudson's Happiness and the Limits of Satisfaction (Boston: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996).

Cardinal Mercier and the Natural Law, Part 4: Happiness

HAPPINESS IS THE END OF HUMAN NATURE. No created good can make man happy; ergo, the only good that can make man happy is uncreated. That leaves but one thing left that can make man happy: God. Do we take this proposition by faith? We can. Can it also be established by reason? Mercier believes that it can, and he offers two proofs or arguments, one negative and one positive.

The Negative Argument

Major	"The object capable of making us happy must completely satiate all our desires; its possession must be secure and assured; and this object must be attainable by all."
Minor	"But in no created good are these conditions verified."
Conclusion	"Therefore no created good can be the adequate object of our happiness."

[216(11)] In the table above we have presented the argument in Mercier's words. The major premise is established, since all men have a human nature, from which it follows that happiness should be attainable by all, and that is should fully and finally satisfy that for which nature yearns. Why would some human natures be ultimately satisfied by one thing, some human natures ultimately by another? Then they would not be the same nature; they would be different natures, and one would be a man, and the other not. But the minor premise requires proof.

Mercier's proof of the minor premise is as follows. He distinguishes three kinds of goods, those of the body, those of the soul, and those external to the body and soul. These goods all suffer from a "three-fold deficiency," so that they cannot meet any of the requirements of the major premise for ultimate happiness. They all fail in these characteristics: they don't satiate all desires, their possession is not secure and assured, and they are not attainable by all men. Created goods suffer from the following deficiencies:

• "they are so incomplete that they have never satisfied anyone";
• "they are of so short duration and so unstable that no on can possess them without anxiety and fear of losing them"; and
• "they are so limited that they can be possess only by a small number of people."

[215(11)] Even if we joined all created goods together into one huge batch and put them in a man's storehouse, they would fail ultimately to satisfy the requirements of the major premise. Malaise, ennui, disaffection, would soon set in. The conclusion, then, is reasonably certain: "No created good, then can verify the conditions of man's objective beatitude." [215(11)]. This does not mean, however, that men will subjectively adopt what reason would tell them is the only honest-to-goodness ultimate good, the only summum bonum honestum. What it does say is that if man attempts to ground his ultimate happiness in a created good he is doomed to failure. It also means that any moral philosophy that is grounded on an ultimate good other than God is false, is irrational.

Mercier is not satisfied with a negative proof. He also offers a positive argument for the thesis that only God is man's ultimate happiness.

The Positive Argument

Major	"[A]n object can be the adequate cause of man's happiness only on condition that it realizes the whole perfection of which man is naturally capable."
Minor	"[O]nly in God is this condition verified."
Conclusion	"The object in which our nature finds its absolute rest is none other than God himself, the uncreated Good."

[217(11)] Mercier's proof of the minor premise, that only God realizes the whole perfection of which man is naturally capable, is as follows. He begins by noting that man's intellectual powers, the powers of his "intellect" and "will," are superior to those of his body, the "organic and sensitive powers." The intellectual powers are unique to man and obviously make him superior to the animals who share with us the lower powers. Between the intellect and the will, the will appears to be subordinate because "the will in its turn comes into action only after the exercise of the intellect, under the attraction of the object which this latter presents to it." [216(11)] Here, now, is the heart of Mercier's proof:

Now the perfection of our intellect demands the most perfect knowledge of the formal object, i.e., the synthetic knowledge of the essences of all material things, through their supreme cause, of their properties and laws, together with the analogical knowledge of the supersensible realities that are connected with them. Or more briefly, the complete development of the mind's activity is the knowledge of the First Cause, the principle of order of the universe.

[217(11)] (emphasis in original). "Here, then, at length we have an object capable of making man happy." [217(11)] This is the First Cause. God.

Depiction of the Aristotelian Cosmos

No one has shown, or can show, that a created good, or a bundle of created goods, can give man bliss. Unless man were the brunt of a bad cosmic joke, one would think that his yearnings would have a purpose, an end, and ultimate satisfaction. Since created things cannot seem ultimately to satisfy those yearnings (they are at best temporary plugs, and any limited satisfaction is nothing but a hint, a clue of the God behind those created goods), it follows man's ultimate good must be that which is (or Who is!) behind the created goods, that First Cause of those goods.

Philosophically, we know him as God, the First Cause.

As Christians we know him as God, the Father.

He is one and the same. Every man's summum bonum. Every man's finis ultimus.