By Leslie Pratch
Privileged classes are maintained by the inheritance of privileges without regard to individual capacities for exploiting them for the common good. This view is most eloquently and subtly put forth by Reinhold Neibuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society:
Classes become sharply distinguished when function is translated into privilege. Inequalities of social privilege develop in every society and these inequalities become the basis of class divisions and class solidarity.
In modern capitalistic society the significant social power is the power which inheres in the ownership of the means of production; and it is that power which is able to arrogate special social privilege to itself. Varying political convictions and social attitudes depend upon the degree of social power and economic privilege possessed by varying classes. Naturally the chief difference will be between those who own property and those do not.
The social and ethical outlook of members of given classes is invariably colored, if not determined, by the unique economic circumstances which each class has as a common possession. Economic interests are basic to class divisions. The development of rational and moral resources may indeed qualify the social and ethical outlook, but it cannot destroy the selfishness of classes. Moral idealism must express itself within the limits of the imagination by which men recognize the true character of their own motives and the validity of interests which compete with their own. The imagination of very few men is acute enough to accomplish this so thoroughly that the selfish motive is adequately discounted and the interests of others are fully understood.
Dominant classes are always slowest to yield power because it is the source of privilege. As long as they hold it, they may dispense and share privilege, enjoying the moral pleasure of giving what does not belong to them and the practical advantage of withholding enough to preserve their eminence and superiority in society.
Philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and the latter explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
The religious conscience is sensitive not only because its imperfections are judged in the light of the absolute but because its obligations are felt to be obligations toward a person. The holy will is a personal will. The poetic imagination of religion uses the symbols derived from human personality to describe the absolute and it finds them morally potent. Moral attitudes always develop most sensitively in person-to-person relationships. That is one reason why more inclusive loyalties, naturally more abstract than immediate ones, lose some of their power over the human heart, and why a shrewd society attempts to restore that power by making a person the symbol of the community. In religion all the higher moral obligations which are lost in abstractions on the historic level are felt as obligations toward the supreme person. Thus both the personality and the holiness of God provide the religious man with a reinforcement of his moral will and a restraint upon his will-to-power.
The demand of religious moralists that nations subject themselves to “the law of Christ” is an unrealistic demand. The spirit of love does not solve large and complex problems. Even a nation composed of individuals who possessed the highest degree of religious goodwill would be less than loving in its relation to other nations. It would fail, if for no other reason, because the individuals could not possibly think themselves into the position of the individuals of another nation in a degree sufficient to insure pure benevolence. No nation in history has ever been known to be purely unselfish in its actions. Selfish, brutal, and antisocial elements express themselves in all inter-group life.
Religion will always leaven the idea of justice with the ideal of love. It will prevent the idea of justice, which is a politico-ethical ideal, from becoming a purely political one, with the ethical element washed out. The ethical ideal, which threatens to become too purely religious, must save the ethical ideal which is in peril of becoming too political. Without the ultra-rational hopes and passions of religion no society will ever have the courage to conquer despair and attempt the impossible; for the vision of a just society is an impossible one, which can be approximated only by those who do not regard it as impossible. The truest visions of religion are illusions, which may be partially realized by being resolutely believed. For what religion believes to be true is not wholly true but ought to be true; and may become true if its truth is not doubted.
The devotion of Christianity to the cross is an unconscious glorification of the individual moral ideal. The cross is the symbol of love triumphant in its own integrity but not triumphant in the world and society. Society, in fact, conspired to create the cross. Both the state and the church were involved in it and probably will be so to the end. The man on the cross turned defeat into victory and prophesied the day when love would be triumphant in the world. But the triumph would have to come through the intervention of God. The moral resources of men would not be sufficient to guarantee it. A sentimental generation has destroyed this apocalyptic note in the vision of the Christ. It thinks the kingdom of God is around the corner while he regarded it as impossible of realization except by God’s grace.
Practically every moral theory, whether utilitarian or institutional, insists on the goodness of benevolence, justice, kindness, and unselfishness. For every moral thinker, the function of reason to support those impulses which carry life beyond itself and to extend the measure and degree of their sociability. The measure of our rationality determines the degree of empathy, of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life (c.f., Murdoch), the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends. In each instance, Murdoch argues, a development of reason may increase the moral capacity.
The intelligent human being, who exploits available resources for knowledge of the needs and wants of his or her fellows human beings, will be more inclined to adjust his or her conduct to their needs than those who are less intelligent. He or she will feel sympathy for misery, not only when it comes immediately into his field of vision, but when it is geographically remote. This speaks to the desirability of being fully open to one’s feelings and those of others. If you are interested, please see my post.
The ability to consider the interests of others to our own is not dependent upon the capacity for sympathy. Harmonious social relations depend upon the sense of justice as much as or even more than upon the sentiment of benevolence. This sense of justice is a product of the mind and not of the heart. It is the result of reason’s insistence upon consistency. One of Immanuel Kant’s two moral axioms: “Act in conformity with that maxim and that maxim only which you can at the same time will to be universal” simply is the application to problems of conduct of reason’s desire for consistency. The force of reason makes for justice not only by placing inner restraints upon the desires of the self in the interest of social harmony but by judging the claims and assertions of individuals from the perspective of the intelligence of the total community.
Normal human beings (i.e., not those suffering from psychosis or antisocial disorder) possess a sense of obligation toward the good. Its general tendency is to support reason against impulse. It may be strengthened and enlarged by discipline and may deteriorate by lack of use (Murdoch paraphrased again).
To cite the if not the word but the spirit of Reinhold Neibuhr:
Conscience is a moral resource in human life. It is more potent when it supports one impulse against another than when it sets itself against the total force of the individual’s desires. It is dubious whether the development of reason, though it increases the opportunities for the exercise of conscience, strengthens the force of conscience itself. In that task religion is more potent than reason. The force of egoistic impulse is much more powerful than any but the most astute psychological analysts and the most rigorous devotees of introspection realize. If it is defeated on a lower or more obvious level, it will express itself in more subtle forms. If it is defeated by social impulse it insinuates itself into the social impulse so that a man’s devotion to his community always means the expression of a transferred egoism as well as altruism. Once the effort to gain significance beyond himself has succeeded, man fights for his social eminence and increased significance with the same fervor and with the same sense of justification with which he fights for his life. This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by-product of all virtuous endeavors. It is in a sense a tribute to the moral nature of man as well as proof of his moral limitations; for it is significant that men cannot pursue their own ends with the greatest devotion if they are unable to attribute universal values to their particular objectives. But men are no more able to eliminate self-interest from their nobler pursuits than they are able to express it fully without hiding it behind and compounding it with honest efforts at or dishonest pretensions of universality. Even a conscious attempt to eliminate dishonest and ambiguous motives is no perfect guarantee against hypocrisy; for there is no miracle by which men can achieve rationality high enough to give them as vivid an understanding of general interests as their own.
The family may still remains a means of self-aggrandizement. The solicitous father wants his wife and children to have all possible advantages. His greater solicitude for them than for others grows naturally out of the sympathy, which intimate relations prompt. But it is also a projection of his own ego. Families may be used to advertise a husband’s and father’s success and prosperity. The truth is that every immediate loyalty is a potential danger to higher and more inclusive loyalties, and an opportunity for the expression of a sublimated egoism.
The larger social groups above the family, communities, classes, races, and nations all present men with the same twofold opportunity for self denial and self aggrandizement; and both possibilities are usually exploited. Patriotism is a high form of altruism, when compared with lesser and more parochial loyalties; but from an absolute perspective it is simply another form of selfishness. The larger the group the more certainly will it express itself selfishly in the total human community. It will be more powerful and therefore more able to defy any social restraints which might be devised. It will also be less subject to internal moral restraints. The larger the group the more difficult it is to achieve a common mind and purpose and the more inevitably will it be unified by momentary impulses and immediate and unreflective purposes. The increasing size of the group increases the difficulties of achieving a group self consciousness except as it comes in conflict with other groups and is unified by perils and passions of war. It is a rather pathetic aspect of human social life that conflict is a seemingly unavoidable prerequisite of group solidarity.
According to the prophets, moral evil lies at the juncture of nature and spirit. The reality of moral guilt asserts itself because the forces and impulses of nature never move by absolute necessity, but under and in the freedom of the spirit (what I call the superego).
The omnipotence of God (with which Niebuhr quarrels) is the theologian’s symbol of the basic and ultimate unity and coherence of the world and runs parallel to the monistic tendencies in philosophy. When it is unduly emphasized, moral realism and vigor are sacrificed to the ideas of unity and consistency. Reason insists on a coherent world because it is its nature to relate all things to each other in one system of consistency and coherence. Morality, on the other hand, maintains its vigor only if the conflict between good and evil is recognized as real and significant. Luther, less philosophical than Calvin and more prophetic in temper, preserved the essential paradox successfully. To him, the devil was “God’s devil.” God used him to his own ends. “Devil thou art a murderer and a criminal but I will use thee for whatsoever I will. Thou shalt be the dung with which I will fertilize my lovely vineyard. I will and can use thee in my work on my vines. . . . Therefore thou mayst hack, cut, and destroy, but no further than I permit.” Luther significantly refused to develop the potential monism of such thought to a final and consistent conclusion.
The connotation of the myth of the fall is that sin lies at the juncture of spirit and nature in that the peculiar and unique characteristics of human spirituality in both its good and evil tendencies can be understood only by analyzing the relation of freedom and necessity, of finiteness and the yearning for the eternal.
Human finiteness stands under the perspective of the eternal and unconditioned. It explains why the contingencies of the natural order are subjected to comparison with the ideal world of freedom, and why human beings cannot accept their limitations without a sense of guilt. The actions to which men are driven by necessities of the natural order are yet charged with guilt. While there are moral theories which deny this element of guilt, it is nevertheless a constant experience of human life and even when it is explicitly denied it is usually covertly affirmed. We never deal with our fellow human beings as if they were only the irresponsible victims and instruments of the forces of nature and history.
Prophetic religion attributes moral evil to an evil will rather than to the limitations of natural man. The justification for this emphasis lies in the fact that human reason is actually able to envisage moral possibilities, more inclusive loyalties, and more adequate harmonies of impulse and life in every instance of moral choice than those which are actually chosen. A perverse element lurks in practically every moral action. We make conscious choices regarding the lesser good. Sometimes, this perverse element dominates the action.
I will continue to develop these ideas in my next post. A caveat: In places, I may occasionally alter Niebuhr’s exact wording to make his prose more intelligible to today’s reader.
In this post I am indebted not only to Niebuhr and Murdoch but also to the authors of Ethical Realism, Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman (2006). Any paraphrasing is my own and if it distorts the meaning these authors intended, please let me know and I will amend immediately.
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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist who trained at Northwestern Medical School with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors and private equity investors to select and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or email her at leslie@pratchco.com or visit www.pratchco.com.
