Summary: An introduction to ethics.
I have been on a slow exploration of discernment for several years now and I am at the point where I want to return to ethics as a contribution to how we think about discernment. One of the problems of some understandings of discernment is that it reduces discernment to purely divine intervention of information or understanding. And while I want to retain the divine as component of discernment, I also think that any true development of capacity around discernment also has to include development in areas of decision-making, ethics, conflict resolution and listening. Those are all human skills that can be developed in addition to the necessary relational/mystical connection go God.
I have dabbled with two other ethics books in the last two years, After Virtue and A Very Short Introduction to Ethics. I thought After Virtue was very helpful to my project and I intend to pick up two other Alasdair MacIntyre books at some point over the next year or so. I thought the Introduction to Ethics was less helpful. Arthur Holmes’ book on Ethics was more helpful than the Very Short Intro edition, but it was still in that similar mode of introducing a very large idea and giving some illustrations and moving on. Introduction books serve a very real purpose but they have limits when you want a more thorough overview.
Arthur Holmes retired from teaching Philosophy at Wheaton College the spring before I started college, but he was on campus and a known figure. I picked up this book several years ago when it was on sale primarily because it was by Arthur Holmes and I have not previously read any of his books. The original edition was published in 1984, but the edition I read was a 2007 update. I do not know how much or what was updated, but there were parts that felt dated and parts that felt fairly current. While I have some quibbles, I think the general introduction chapters were helpful. After a broad overview opening chapter, the next chapters are about cultural relativism, and then three ethical systems that Holmes does not think rise to “Christian Ethics”, emotivism, ethical egoism, and utilitarianism. These introductions were helpful and included not just descriptions but enough history to contextually understand the rise and importance of these ethical systems.
From these descriptive chapters, there was a movement to more constructive work with developing a Christian ethics and a chapter on moral knowledge and obligation. Again the developmental chapters I thought were helpful but felt a bit like a freshman college framing of ethics. The third section was using several areas of ethics to discuss practically how ethics can impact our lives through a discussion of Human Rights, Criminal Punishment, Government legislation and ethics, sex and marriage. I thought the sex and marriage was the weakest of the book, but it was also only 8 pages and was very introductory.
The final two chapters were the most helpful I think. Holmes discussed being a moral agent and how a feminist ethic of caring for others and the idea of working toward our “telos” of the highest good impacted ethical thinking. I am more feminist in my theological thinking precisely because of the feminist critique (and the womanist critique of feminism) than Holmes is and so I think that I would have gone in different ways than he did, but it was still a helpful discussion. The last chapter was a discussion of Virtue Ethics and primarily Alasdair MacIntyre’s reinvigoration of ethical discussions because of After Virtue. I have critiques of After Virtue from my limited background but I do think that from my position of thinking about discernment and how ethics interacts with discernment, the idea of ethics as a developmental practice and not formulaic science or abstract philosophical systems makes a lot more sense of what I am trying to do.
Part of what I appreciate about Holmes’ work was that he was trying to be a philosopher as a Christian and that means that he had to think through Christian implications of philosophy not just the beauty or reason of the philosophical system. This quote about how the Aristotle’s ideas of virtue were adapted through Aquinas I think is a good example of that:
Thomas Aquinas had followed Aristotle to this point, adding that obedience to the law’s commands could help habituate us to virtue; but he still recognized that habituation alone is not enough without “infusion.” The Holy Spirit infuses the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, which go beyond any natural potential, but he also infuses habits that strengthen already existing habits. In effect he frees us to be good. Grace does what human nature alone cannot, not grace instead of natural processes, however, but grace working in and through natural processes to the ends our Creator intended. (p139)
Again, this was written as an introduction to ethics for a college classroom or basic introduction and there are limits to what a 145 page book can cover. I also think that even with an update nearly 20 years ago, there are some realities to a discussion of ethics that was written in 1984, especially around gender and the ways that concerns about relativism were framed. It isn’t that some aspects of relativism that were raised matter, but it feels like the very people that were raising concerns about cultural relativism in the 1970-90s seemed to have fully adopted it by the 2016.
Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions by Arthur F. Holmes Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition