Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America's Most Important Idea (21 page)

Teleology as a folk theory is widespread around the world. It arises naturally, first because there really are in the world a great many natural processes with natural end states, and second because
we
have plans and purposes and we tend to project the notion of plans and purposes onto the world. In fundamentalist religion, teleology appears as God’s plan, and all of creation is unfolding according to God’s plan.

Aristotle made the ideas of essences, teleology, and flourishing central to his theory of ethics—virtue ethics. Flourishing for an individual person is that person fulfilling his or her potential—developing and using his or her gifts to best advantage and becoming happy through doing so. Aristotle, the founder of systematic biology, understood that just as plants need to be cultivated in order to flourish, so human beings need some “cultivation” as well. Aristotle believed that people could develop certain traits—called virtues—that would help them flourish and be happy. These are personal virtues, since they apply to individuals. What is flourishing for one person may not be flourishing for another, and so different people may require different personal virtues.

Other virtues are social in nature, as required for a good society, for example, honesty and compassion. A good society, for Aristotle, is one that helps people fulfill their potential and flourish. Here we see a precursor to progressive thought, to the idea that the state has a responsibility to help citizens flourish and that good citizenship—civic virtue—is required for the state to fulfill that function.

Notice that virtue ethics uses the ideas of essence and teleology for individuals, as well as for people in general. Different people have different essences and thus different natural modes of flourishing. And of course, there are vices as well as virtues. The potential to be a liar, a thief, or a murderer—that is, one who interferes with the flourishing of others—does not count as worthy of flourishing.

Virtue ethics contrasts sharply with moral law, an approach to morality in which certain actions are defined as absolutely right and others as absolutely wrong. There are many systems of moral laws, both in America and around the world. They all have lists of rules to follow.

Virtue ethics does not require such a list of rules. In moral law theory, obedience to the law, performing an action prescribed as “right,” may very well conflict with flourishing and happiness, and with what virtue ethics considers a good society. If it does, then flourishing, happiness, and the good society are seen as wrong, and doing what will make you flourish or your society “good” can be considered evil.

Consider, for example, assisting with the suicide of a patient with a terminal disease, horrible pain, no hope of recovery, and nothing to live for. A particular system of moral law may ban assisted suicide, but in a system of virtue ethics, the virtues of empathy and responsibility may see it as moral in such a case. Or consider a fetus that develops with a genetic defect that leaves it with no brain. If born without a brain, it would soon die outside the womb and, even with life support, could never lead anything like a human life. Suppose, in addition, that the birth would endanger the life of the mother. Abortion is banned by some systems of moral law, but under virtue ethics, the virtues of empathy and responsibility may very well lead one to see terminating the pregnancy as highly moral in such a case.

Many people live by a moral law that requires absolute nonviolence, and yet in some situations violence may be required to save the lives of others. In such a case, under virtue ethics, empathy for a potential murder victim could declare certain violence moral, where the given moral law would not.

Moral law very often requires discipline and sacrifice, because what is best for your individual flourishing, and even survival,
can violate some precept of moral law. This is a form of discipline—
negative
discipline—that can be diametrically opposed to your flourishing. Virtue ethics also requires discipline, but it is usually a different kind: one that supports and makes possible flourishing—
positive
discipline.

Within the idea of moral law, developing “character” is developing negative discipline—the moral strength to say no to your desires and to make sacrifices for the sake of obeying the moral law. Virtue, in a moral law system, consists in obeying moral laws, and virtues are traits that help you obey moral laws even under difficult conditions. This is what is meant by virtues when used by ultraconservative writers like William Bennett and Rick Santorum. They are social virtues appropriate for all, rather than personal virtues, which are not taken seriously by conservatives. As Dick Cheney said in rejecting the very idea of including conservation of energy as government policy, “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”

Character is very different in virtue ethics than in a morality based on moral law: Character consists in having the right social virtues—empathy, responsibility, honesty, etc.—as well as the focus and the energy, to function virtuously under trying circumstances and not give up.

Causation is also a part of character in the two models. Moral law is about direct causation, about individuals obeying the law, about individual action or individual ability to refrain from action. Character in moral law requires the ability to control direct causation. Character in virtue ethics is about both direct and systemic causation, the ability to understand the complexity of social systems, to judge complex situations, to understand the complex effects of one’s actions, and then to do what is most ethical according to both personal and social virtues.

Virtue ethics and moral law are both moral systems. Neither is relativistic, neither says that anything goes. Virtue ethics has
the advantage of promoting a recognition of systemic causation and hence of allowing many complex realities to be recognized that might be ignored under moral law. And there are systems where both occur and one is given priority.

Essence, teleology, virtue ethics, and moral law are everyday ideas that have shaped philosophy and, in so doing, have had a major impact on religion and politics.

We are now in a position to see how these ideas function in progressive and conservative Christianity—and in politics.

Let us begin our discussion with progressive Christianity. It is the Christianity of American freedom—of the abolitionists, the suffragists, and the civil rights movement.

Progressive Christians see God as a nurturant parent, offering unconditional love and grace. Grace, for progressive Christians, is metaphorical nurturance: You have to be close to God to get grace, you can’t earn grace, you have to actively accept grace to get it, you are filled with grace, you are healed by grace, you are made a moral being by grace. Christ, in the progressive tradition, offers a model for living—the embodiment of the progressive values of empathy and responsibility. Progressive Christians tend to focus not on the apocalyptic strain of the New Testament but on Jesus’ acts and the values they represent.

These values are tied up with flourishing and with a kind of virtue ethics. If you empathize with someone, you want him or her to flourish. If you are responsible to yourself and others, you want to work for a society that maximizes flourishing for all. God’s grace—His nurturance—helps you flourish. You can’t earn grace, but you can do what is necessary: get close to God, by following in Christ’s footsteps and living a Christian life.

What is a Christian life, one lived according to the moral teachings of Jesus? Renounce violence (turn the other cheek), don’t try to dominate others (the meek shall inherit the earth), be tolerant (judge not lest ye be judged), offer forgiveness (who will cast the first stone?), love your neighbor as yourself, heal the sick, help the poor and helpless.

The idea, of course, is that everyone should live this way—and if they did, the result would be … freedom! Freedom from violence, domination, intolerance, vengeance, hatred, illness, poverty, and helplessness. If everyone turned the other cheek, we would all be free from violence. If no one tried to dominate others, we would all be free of domination. If no one was judgmental, we would be free of intolerance. And so on. Jesus preached progressive freedom, freedom from oppression, what today is called social justice.

But progressive Christianity is not just about freedom from. It is also about freedom to—being free to flourish. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Show empathy and act on it, take responsibility: do what you can to help your neighbor flourish. And if everyone does that, your neighbors will help you flourish. Progressive Christianity is about members of a community—and citizens of a nation—maximizing the freedom for everyone to become his or her best self. “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Why? If everyone were to stop trying to dominate others, if everyone became “meek,” people would not impose on the freedom of others and so would maximize the freedom of everyone to prosper. It is the logic of Jesus and the logic of progressives.

Progressive Christianity is a religion of progressive freedom—American freedom. Its God is a nurturant God. Its morality is nurturant morality. It has the goal of creating a good society, one that helps people fulfill their potential and flourish. Its politics is progressive politics: The state’s responsibility is to secure citizens’ freedom through doing everything it can to assure the right care, build the right institutions, and create the right experiences—nurturant child rearing, progressive schools, good health care,
caring communities, good jobs—while avoiding all the wrong ones—being raised in poverty, ignorance, violence, and joblessness.

Realizing the values of Jesus in the world requires not just personal action but also political action—action through the state. The politics of progressive religion is not narrowly about matters of the church; it is about the broadest range of issues that have an effect on human flourishing. Today, following in the footsteps of Jesus means being a political activist as well as a virtuous individual. Unfortunately, most progressive Christians do not understand the political implications of their theology.

The morality of progressive Christianity says a great deal about the relationship between the state and religion. A state religion would impose force and control on religious values and practice, and impinge on matters of individual conscience. State recognition would introduce political control and political advantage, either advantaging one religion over another or making religion something other than purely a matter of conscience. Favoring religion over nonreligion again introduces matters of force, control, or advantage, where only matters of conscience—your relationship to God—should enter. From these considerations, it appears that progressive Christianity is committed to the following views.

• There should be no state religion and no state recognition of any version of any religion.
  

• The separation of church and state should be maintained; the government should not favor any religion over any other, nor favor religion over nonreligion.
  

• The government should not interfere in the practice of
  any religion, except if that practice criminally harms people, interferes with the freedoms of others, or endangers public safety.
  

• The practice of religion should remain separate from public life.
  

• No religion should impose itself on anyone or engage in any coercive practice.
  

• No religion’s views should be made part of the curriculum in any public school.
  

• No pressure from superiors or peers to join a religion or join in the practice of any religion should occur in any public institution.
  

• There should be no favoritism based on religion in employment, in promotions, or in evaluations in any institution receiving public funds or using public facilities.
  

Progressive Christians read the Bible to obtain moral lessons for everyday life, and they understand that it teaches via metaphor and parable. And what it teaches are the traditional values of progressive American freedom.

Life is a progressive issue, since progressive Christians are committed to promoting freedom, freedom from oppression and pain and freedom to realize one’s dreams. Progressive Christians promote an inherent, though undeclared, “culture of life.” They tend to favor minimizing infant mortality by having the state pay for pre-and postnatal care for indigent women; universal health care; care for the elderly; cleaning up, and stopping, pollution to advance health and life; ending the death penalty; and most important, diplomacy over war.

Progressive Christians recognize and respect the difficulty of the decision faced by women with unwanted pregnancies. They do not favor the government intruding on its citizens’ freedom to make their own, and their families’, medical decisions for them. Remember why freedom is visceral. Freedom is about the body
and one’s own control of it. For most women, abortion is a freedom issue, since it is about control over their own bodies.

There are two possible constitutional issues here. First, is the freedom to control your own body and make your own medical decisions protected by the Constitution? Second, should advocates of conservative Christianity be able to restrict such a freedom on the part of those of another religious persuasion?

Nobody wants unwanted pregnancies. Progressive Christians, like women everywhere, would like to minimize unwanted pregnancies—not by force but by addressing many of the reasons for unwanted pregnancies, that is, by having government fund sex education, contraception in schools, and family planning; increasing funding for adoption and foster care; and funding child-rearing expenses for the indigent. These pro-life policies are all opposed by the radical right and fundamentalist Christians.