Useful Fictions? Faith, Hope & Love: Part 1 - Faith

The term 'useful fiction' was apparently coined by a Hans Vaihinger, who felt that at times the psychological benefits of acting as if something were true sometimes justified our persisting in promoting concepts that were false or unfalsifiable.

I was first prompted to blog on this subject after discussions with a bright student about whether 'faith' was a virtue; and recently after pondering on the idea of having faith in love as an ideal.

In the First Letter to the Corinthians in the New Testament, St. Paul praises agape (the Christian notion of love, or, as it was once known in English, charity). He says: "Love never faileth", and argues that it will last beyond death ("when perfection comes"). In verse 13, he finishes the chapter by saying: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." These 3 have become known as the 'theological virtues', and for many Christians they are considered the greatest traits a person should aim at nurturing.

In this musing, then, I aim to discuss the value of faith, hope and love. The merits of faith have been much debated. Bertrand Russell, a well-known critic of religion, argued:

"We may define “faith” as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of “faith.” We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups substitute different emotions. Christians have faith in the Resurrection; communists have faith in Marx’s Theory of Value. Neither faith can be defended rationally, and each therefore is defended by propaganda and, if necessary, by war."

(Russell, Bertrand. "Will Religious Faith Cure Our Troubles?". Human Society in Ethics and Politics. Ch 7. Pt 2) retrieved 4/8/10)

In other words, faith, not being amenable to reason or evidence, can be dangerous when beliefs conflict or when beliefs lead to conflict. C. S. Lewis, however, defines faith with a subtle twist: arguing that faith is not so much substituting emotion for evidence, but rather it is the holding on to beliefs that were based on reason or evidence, regardless of the ups and downs of our emotions. I can clearly see a value in faith in this latter sense, though I am more inclined to call this virtue the virtue of constancy. Furthermore, I suspect that Lewis' attempt to define faith in this way is motivated by his Christianity, and this article is not about whether Christianity is rational. The word St Paul uses for faith is 'pistis' (πίστις), which is defined (by the author of Hebrews - possibly Paul, but probably not) in Hebrews 11: "Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen." However, even this passage seems confusing, as the first and second clause of this verse have quite different senses to me. The first part, having confidence in what you hope for, I will return to discuss as part of my wider discussion of hope. The second part raises the question of what kind of 'proof' or 'evidence' you can have of things not seen.

Obviously, although Paul says "not seen", I think we must rule out other senses too (an appeal to the taste of God is not what he had in mind!) Also, the word translated as 'proof' has also been translated as 'evidence' or 'conviction' (ESV, KJV). Having faith in something, as Russell's definition suggests, seems to imply at least some lacking of evidence for it. For instance, it would be stretching the meaning of the word beyond its elastic limit to say that I have 'faith' that my fingers are currently typing on a computer, as the evidence for this is just too overwhelming. However, it does not imply a complete lack of evidence. For example, Arthur can have 'faith' that Angela will bring back the car he lent her because Arthur has some (perhaps limited) evidence that Angela is a nice person (e.g. she smiled in a friendly way). Nonetheless, the idea of having faith in something without empirical evidence, (as Paul's phrase: "things not seen" implies), is a usage of the word that is commonly found with regards to religion. The NIV translation says it is being "certain of what we do not see": I will call this 'faith-1'.

Is faith-1 a virtue? Bertrand Russell's argument is one that has been repeated by the likes of Richard Dawkins. "Faith is the great cop-out; the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence" [Edinburgh Science Festival lecture, 1992]. Dawkins, like Russell, goes further, arguing that such faith is not just irrational, but dangerous. The argument is simple and effective, and can be supported by examples where someone is convinced in something and will not 'listen to reason'. Imagine the difficulty of persuading someone who is paranoid, or believes in a conspiracy theory, who thinks that Obama is a lizard or that the earth is flat, (or all of these!) to think otherwise. If they are convinced despite the lack of evidence, then changing their minds will not be easy. Unfortunately, false beliefs can be damaging to oneself and to others. For example, the belief that Obama is a lizard is not just false, it is immoral, as it dehumanises him, and the belief that vaccines cause autism could lead to unnecessary and avoidable harm. The idea that faith-1 is good, I conclude, is a useless fiction.

I wish to clarify that the problem isn't believing in things that are not 'proved', if by proved you mean something like 'made absolutely certain by the evidence'. Science, we should remind ourselves, does not make anything absolutely certain. Evidence can only make a claim overwhelmingly likely. Furthermore, it is reasonable to believe in some things with little evidence. For example, if you told me that you had cornflakes for breakfast, such limited testimony is perfectly ample under ordinary circumstances to warrant my belief that you had cornflakes for breakfast. I do not need to launch a CSI-style inquiry. Being overly sceptical could also be damaging to oneself and to others, if it leads to intense distrust and a lot of time-wasting trying to undertake experiments to check perfectly ordinary claims.

At this point, to close this part of the discussion, I wish to refer to a good old classical idea from Aristotle's ethics. If faith is a virtue in any way, it doesn't lie in certainty. Nor is unbridled scepticism helpful. The virtue is a mean between them. Aristotelian thinkers (such as MacIntyre, mentioned in a previous blog) emphasise the value of practical reason, and this form of wisdom is a matter of being well adjusted to the facts of the world and how it works, being sensitive- rather than indifferent- to evidence. As Hume said: "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."

Mystery and Self-Evidence

-"The answer is yes. But what is the question?" - Woody Allen.

-"Yes is the answer - and you know that, for sure." - John Lennon.

-"There is no question, which is why the answer is always yes. And yes is not so much of an answer as it is an acknowledgement within ourselves of the presence (of everything). Being is at once a mystery and a fact; the two are one and the same thing. This is why the mystery is no more a problem than the self-evidence is a solution." - Andre Comte-Sponville.

-"For an answer which cannot be expressed, the question too cannot be expressed....The solution to the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem." - Ludwig Wittgenstein.

-I have recently added 'atheist mystic' to my religious views. I'm occasionally just awed by being itself. I love it when you just surf the moment. Riding the crest of time. Travelling at the speed of light.

-There's something in the simplicity of this that releases us from negativity, and frees us to focus on things that matter. I won't stand for a philosophy that doesn't deal with practical problems. Whilst you are at peace in this state of acceptance, I find I can just get on with action. It gives me focus, and avoids distraction.

-I've had a few moments lately that have really given me a sense of pure joy. I can't hope to fully express this - though I will note that there has been a common denominator facilitating these experiences, which has been the beauty of nature.

-Still, I feel like there is only so much to be said about it. In a way it's not that profound. It is what it is - it's just being.


WHAT'S THIS GOT TO DO WITH YOUR R.E.P. COURSE?

-Well, these personal reflections are a kind of example of non-theistic mysticism. They perhaps express an element of nature mysticism, such as felt by Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Keats and Blake. They have elements in common with Buddhism or some kinds of soul mysticism too.

Swinburne's Principles of Credulity and Testimony

Richard Swinburne, a distinguished Oxford University philosopher, has argued in favour of the existence of God in such books as: Is There A God?. He has defended some of the traditional arguments for God's existence, as well as taking the 'Argument from Religious Experience' further than most previous theistic thinkers. In order to do this, he has suggested that we should not be so sceptical about people's personal experiences of God, visions of angels, and so on. He suggests that in general we should trust such experiences, since otherwise we are left with a philosophy that doubts everything. He proposes two principles to support this, which work on a kind of 'innocent until proven guilty' basis.

The Principle of Credulity states: "...(in the absence of special considerations)...if it appears to a subject that X is present, then X is probably present. What one seems to perceive is probably so."

To which, my first question would be: What is meant by 'present'?

If one merely means, subjectively present, then the claim is vacuous. Obviously it appears to be present, unless we are accusing these people of wilful deception, which I am not inclined to do for every believer who has claimed such experiences (though I am sure there are plenty of believers who have grossly exaggerated the strength and clarity of such experiences, if not entirely made them up - perhaps out of what they see as a virtuous desire to promote the religion that they believe will save people's souls.

If one means that it is 'really' there, then immediately we risk stepping into a hugely problematic area of metaphysics (i.e. the debate between realists and anti-realists). Countless philosophers have argued that we cannot know what is truly real, or that the world is essentially made up of our perceptions. However, whilst I am interested in this debate, it is not the line or argument I think is most relevant to Swinburne's claims.

One might hope to avoid all this, and argue for a 'common sense' understanding of reality... which some modern philosophers have called 'naive realism'. However, when the matter at stake is not at all a matter of common sense - i.e. claims of religious experience, then the appeal to common sense reality is not justified. There is a convincing argument for a kind of pragmatism, which allows us to get on with life, since solipsism is highly unsatisfactory, and we don't get too far if we don't come to accept that things like trees and computers are 'real' - Hilary Putnam has proposed what he calls 'Pragmatic Realism' as a kind of 'solution' to this debate. Unless one believes that there is a good pragmatic case for believing in God because of the benefits this brings (which I think is highly dubious to say the least), then the appeal to common sense realism falls flat when we are dealing with religious experiences. People can get by perfectly well without believing in God or angels, etc, if not better.

The Principle of Testimony states: "In the absence of special considerations the experiences of others are (probably) as they report them ... In general there are no special considerations for doubting what subjects report about their religious experiences."

In response to such claims, Richard Dawkins has often quoted the astronomer and atheist Carl Sagan's famous phrase: 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'. The point being that whilst it makes sense to accept in general what people say, for example, about what they had for breakfast, or how many children they have, it is not wise to naively accept what they say if they are claiming to have run 100 metres in less than 9 seconds, or that they can make themselves disappear for a day once a year. We would rightly demand pretty sound evidence for such claims.

Furthermore, it worth looking at these 'special considerations' that Swinburne mentions. He suggests that unless we know someone to be a habitual liar, mentally ill, or to be 'under the influence' of some hallucinogen, we should trust what they say. He goes on to argue that it would unreasonable to assume this for all the millions of people who have claimed such experiences. In other words, it seems he is hoping that the sheer weight of numbers adds an increased probability that some of these experiences are veridical. However, it still seems to me that the 'burden of proof' lies with the believers to give a good reason to accept that when people claim to see something that most people cannot see (and those that can cannot see most of the time), that this is not in itself a reason to doubt their state of mind.

For more on this topic, I recommend checking out the following site: http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/rel_four.htm
The article finishes (appropriately, I think) by responding with arguments from David Hume, such as those he used against belief in miracles. I think that on the whole David Hume's arguments stand up as a convincing refutation of Swinburne's suggestion that these experiences are 'probably' true.

A Defence of Soft Determinism

"A common opinion prevails that the juice has ages ago been pressed out of the free-will controversy, and that no new champion can do more than warm up stale arguments which everyone has heard. This is a radical mistake. I know of no subject less worn out, or in which inventive genius has a better chance of breaking open new ground--not, perhaps, of forcing a conclusion or of coercing assent, but of deepening our sense of what the issue between the two parties really is, of what the ideas of fate and of free will imply."

William James - The Dilemma of Determinism

Despite my title, I should start by saying that I am of the opinion that the topic of Free Will and Determinism poses certain intractable problems for philosophy. I respect the dilemmas generated by centuries of philosophy too much to proffer any kind of simple 'solution'. In fact, it is precisely for this reason that I prefer to call myself a Soft Determinist than a compatibilist. If we allow the libertarians to define free will as the ability to have done otherwise (cf C A Campbell), then it seems clear to me that this is not compatible with classical determinism. This point is not an unimportant claim, and as such is worth exploring with more careful analysis.

Determinism is generally equated with belief in the 'principle of universal causation': that all events have a cause. Whilst I recognize that the notion of 'causation' is in itself a whole area of philosophical analysis and argument, it would derail me too much to survey this fully at this point. (Briefly: I personally am intrigued by the work of Helen Beebee, a compatibilist who has developed a defense of a Humean theory of causal non-necessitation; and of Hilary Putnam, who has argued, in Pragmatic Realism that statements about causation are 'radically perspectival'). Whilst I would not want to be said to have ignored such scholarship, I think that, at least at a common sense level, to say 'X causes Y' is to say that X materially implies Y. Given that X was the case, we then are led to the conclusion that Y could not have been otherwise. In conclusion, then, belief in universal causation, is a belief that universally, things could not have been otherwise. Hence, Free Will is not compatible with Determinism.


Let me clarify what I intend to defend: my idea of 'soft determinism' has some roots in William James' idea in The Dilemma of Determinism, but needs to be distinguished from certain interpretations of that definition. Let us look further at his words about the term:


"Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom." (op cit.)



I do not believe in fate, with its implication of there being some force or plan or intelligence guiding our futures to a certain destination. I sort of believe in the bondage of the will, but not in the sense implied by St Paul saying that we are slaves to 'sin'. Why 'sin' is given such importance I do not know. All sorts of things are compelling, not just unchristian things, and many habits of thought that captivate us are surely of just the sort that the YHWH of the Bible would approve. Perhaps the real problem with the analogy implied by the word bondage, is that it could be interpreted as meaning that our will is something separate, which would be free if it weren't constrained by our desires and appetites. To me, the will is just a word for the brain process which initiates when different imagined outcomes are brought to consciousness. Each outcome might perhaps satisfy different desires and appetites, and forego others, thus it seems to me a better way round to suggest that our will keeps certain appetites in bondage.


I wouldn't 'repudiate' the word 'necessitation' either. I personally believe that the determinists are right in saying that choice is an illusion, on a metaphysical level. I can certainly imagine having chosen differently, but how can we ascribe reality to counterfactuals? Probably only by creating a theory such as David Lewis' approach where each 'possible world' really exists! Whilst I found it enjoyable and fascinating to consider Lewis' metaphysics, and admire his intellectual sturdiness, I just can't work with his conceptual scheme. To me, possibilities are not realities.


I'm currently exploring further the notion of freedom implied by the phrase 'freedom is only necessity understood' - which seems to be a clear reference to Spinoza's approach and his argument that we need to free ourselves from the burden of hopes and fears... a burden that comes from the existential weight of feeling we could have been anything other than what we are. No doubt I will write more about Spinoza in a future post - lately many of my thoughts have sent me in the direction of his Ethics, so I have resolved to take a fresh look at his work.


The view I want to defend is that (a): determinism is true.
(b): we are 'free' in a certain sense.



I have already clarified (a), but would also like at this point to add Daniel Dennett's precise definition of the claim: "All physical events are caused or determined by the sum total of all previous events."
The second claim, that we are free, I have placed in inverted commas, to indicate that we are dealing with a word that has a controversial or subjective application. William James thought in his essay it would be best to avoid using the word 'freedom' at all, due to its having too many connotations and interpretations. Daniel Dennett prefers to continue to use the word, and argues that we should appropriate it to be used in a more helpful way, rather than leaving the word to the libertarians. He attempts to show the vacuousness of their usage of the word, and that in fact, their sense of 'freedom' raises more problems for morality and philosophy than determinism does.


I am a great admirer of Daniel Dennett's philosophical work in general, but in particular I was impressed by his arguments in Elbow Room (1984). To summarize, he claims that we have all the varieties of 'free will' worth wanting, and that our resistance to determinism is due to its being portrayed in certain ways that engenders an irrational fear. Analogies are used such that we are made to feel as if we are puppets, or as if we are robots, or animals, for example. Dennett shows that although we are animals, and although we are mechanistic, like a robot, we have brains that are sufficiently more complex such that we can process information about our situation and about imagined consequences of our actions more effectively, giving us increased ability to navigate the natural world effectively. What kind of 'free will' is worth wanting? One in which we can follow our desires, not blindly, but using our minds. Well, our brains give us exactly this ability - in fact we cannot help but to will our actions using our minds!


A common objection is that this kind of determinism still doesn't satisfy our sense of moral responsibility. If, in the final analysis, one was always going to do a certain action, one could not have avoided it, then how can they be held responsible? My answer would be that if the (most relevant) reasons that one could not have avoided the action can be located as part of that agent's character, then one is morally responsible, since blame can then be directly laid on the character of the agent. Certainly, I think we have to dispose of the notion of ultimate moral accountability. No person invents himself in a vacuum, or ex nihilo, so to speak. We have to 'settle' for a limited notion of responsibility that recognises that whilst ultimately one's character is a product of one's brain and the environmental influences we undergo, nonetheless we are forced to take ownership of this character - it doesn't belong to anyone else!


This philosophy may not suit those of certain right-wing political tendencies, who - for a variety of reasons... perhaps selfish ones - are inclined to minimize the influence of both nature and nurture. However, I am not inclined to see their disapproval as a particularly bad thing.


Another common objection is that such a mechanistic approach leads inexorably to fatalism or nihilism. To which, I would start by simply countering that it cannot be that inexorable, since I myself am a determinist - and yes, I am one who finds Nietzsche's work fascinating - but I am by no means a nihilist. I am, as you may or may not know, a 'pragmatic realist', in a sense inspired by Hilary Putnam (see Metaphysics, Kim & Sosa, p.591ff). As such, I have a great regard for American pragmatism, such as that espoused by William James. However, I disagree with a number of his arguments in The Dilemma of Determinism. I see no reason for pessimism to follow directly from determinism, though nor do I think optimism is implied either.


Things are what they are, and people are who they are, and yet they change how they change. For my part, I find it pragmatic to act as if I am ultimately free, but only because it doesn't help to be constantly meditating on the sources and causes of our 'choices'. Furthermore, I don't think society 'needs' this idea of absolute responsibility, as some have argued. Once the the libertarians' 'straw man' arguments against determinism have been exposed as exaggerating our helplessness, we can find a moderate sense of responsibility that is much more realistic. Individually, we can but do our bit. We will continue to imagine different futures, and select those we most desire. It is the duty of the moral philosopher to identify the values, virtues and behaviours that will bring about the greatest good.


I wonder if those who argue for the absolutist notion of responsibility, have inherited this notion from religion, which seeks to personify all that is praiseworthy into one being. I love praise, don't get me wrong, but I am at peace with the notion that I can but claim limited credit for what I do...


This essay would not have been possible without ....[here I should list infinite factors, but will rather single out my metaphysics tutor at Manchester University, Helen Beebee]....................

MacIntyre's attack on individualism

I've been pondering the value of the Western notion of a "pure individual" which MacIntyre so dislikes. ('No man is an island', etc. - John Donne). MacIntyre used to be a Marxist, so I guess he is still used to looking at philosophy starting from the big picture and working down to individuals from there. I hear that he now considers himself a Christian, which was a surprise to me, though he has always spoken highly of Aquinas and Thomism in general.

MacIntyre's ethics is communitarian; the way he sees things, values flow from society to individuals rather than vice versa. Thus I have come to see his critique of enlightenment philosophy (such as utilitarianism) as part of a deeper attack: on Hobbes' egoism, as well as on the Cartesian notion of the 'self' being the point of certainty that all philosophy begins with. Aristotle was in no doubt of man's ties to society, famously describing mankind not just as 'the rational animal' but also as: 'zoon politikon' (the social animal).

I was impressed by aspects of his argument in his more recent work: 'Dependent Rational Animals'. I like the fact that his attitude to humanity is biologically rooted in modern common sense, and recognizes the fact that we are animals - correcting Aristotle's dated, arrogant, anthropocentric assumption that 'animals were made for the sake of man'. I also like the argument for communitarianism there which emphasizes the importance of the virtue of care/compassion (notoriously missing from Aristotle's 12 moral virtues). He makes a straightforward convincing case for our interdependence right from birth and into old age. This recognition of our own dependence imposes a (prudential) duty on us towards all those who are also dependent (such as the disabled). I was expecting the more traditional economic Marxist argument about the need for mutual economy, but it was much more personal and humane than that.

The critique of Bentham's approach to politics (treating people as units, and society as a sum) and Kant's idea of using "pure reason" to find "universalisable" categorical imperatives is found in MacIntyre's book "A Short History of Ethics". In his view meta-ethics follows a path from these formulaic doctrines via subjectivism to a 'Nietzschean morality', or even emotivism, such as that proposed by AJ Ayer. He thinks that this has been destructive and has left everyone generally confused about right and wrong. He argues that with a better conception of the self - as being essentially part of a society - one can avoid such naive errors and reconnect with the genuine values traditionally espoused in Western narratives.

I value individuality highly, and the personal liberties that Western cultures have fought for must be treasured -(and some are only recently or partially won). We would be foolish to take them for granted. Although Aristotle favoured a 'timocracy', that in his culture may not have respected the rights of 'lower' individuals (women, for example!!!), I don't see any essential conflict between MacIntyre's ethics and the freedom of expression that I care about. After all, believing in society is not the same thing as denying the individual (though Margaret Thatcher in denying the former seemed to imply these two were mutually exclusive!) It is with the idea of a 'pure individual' that I am taking issue.

I recently read a great article by Jonathan Lethem about influence. It struck home something I've always suspected: our creative free will is not so much about the expression of one's independent self as the expression of the self within the community we identify with. Though we are indeed unique, our genes are merely a jumbling of the DNA of our ancestors with a few random mutated 'letters' thrown into the code. I always struggled when trying to write songs, partly because I am no musical genius, but partly because everything I wrote felt too much like a tribute to songs that were already out there. The point I'm trying to emphasize is that the 'pure individual' is a myth - though we 'add our own unique voice to the choir', so to speak, we would be nothing without the choir that trained us to sing for ourselves.

The Nicomachean Ethics - rational and practical.

Aristotle's ethics is great because it is practical. What is important to Aristotle is that people develop phronesis (practical wisdom or prudence), and that they actually improve their character. As James Keenan has put it, virtue ethics asks 3 questions: 'who am I?'; 'what should I become?'; and 'how do I get there?' In other words, we basically need to follow the Greek mantra: "know thyself", and know how to be better people.

Lots of religions teach their followers how to be better people, so maybe this is not so new after all. Christianity has explicitly taken a virtue ethics approach - in Aquinas' writings, for example -and Catholics today continue to endorse such ideas by talking of the 'cardinal virtues' and the theological virtues that St Paul mentions in Corinthians 13: "faith, hope and love" (the greatest being love).

I have no problem with the elevation of love - (compassion, agape, caritas - whatever you want to call it) - to such an important place. Actually, if I could make one major change to the Nicomachean Ethics, it would be to insert a chapter extolling the virtue of empathy and loving kindness. I don't mind hope either... I like optimism, and I would agree that one needs to find a golden mean between wishful-thinking and pessimism. However, treating faith as a virtue is much more dubious. Everyone places faith in certain basic ideas, such as that we exist, and other people's minds are not an illusion, and there is a physical world around us which does not disappear when we shut our eyes. But, of course, St Paul meant for us to have faith in something essentially unknowable and unfalsifiable.

Numerous atheists (yes, including Richard Dawkins, of course) have pointed out the survival-value that is conferred upon religion by promoting that kind of 'faith' as a virtue. But its practical benefit to us is negligible (aside from providing comfort). It is only useful for those who already have accepted the other clever survival-ensuring idea that religion promotes: that we are innately bad people, doomed, sinners, in need of salvation, etc.

Aristotle's account of the virtues is great because they allow us to find a more practical balance between selfishness and selflessness. Christianity has always promoted self-sacrifice, so much so that it is hard not to see it as a virtue. Yet, it does not take much to see that it is essentially irrational and not 'universalisable' in the Kantian sense. Aristotle ethics is by no means individualistic, but instead offers hope that one can aim for both the good of the community and one's own good at the same time.

To finish, I shall quote from 'Pol Culture' - a fine blog, which contains, amongst other things, a detailed explanation of the Nicomachean Ethics:

"Justice requires wisdom, which Aristotle defines as "the union of intuitive reason and science". One must know what is good, and one must know how to go about achieving it. As Aristotle writes, "He who is absolutely wise in deliberation is he who aims, by a reasonable process, at that which is best for a man in practical life". The means to wisdom is prudence, which employs the scientific and deliberative capacities to determine the best course of action in practice. Its goal is wisdom, and it rules in wisdom's interest."

[emphasis is mine]

MacIntyre: bring back Aristotle's approach to ethics!

Alasdair MacIntyre has argued that ethical theories such as Bentham's Utilitarianism or Kant's deontological ethics have led Western moral philosophy into a dead-end. Anyone who has taken a course in ethics has probably been presented with dilemmas such as the famous hypothetical scenarios (there are lots of variations on this theme) where you can kill one person in order to save 5 others, or where you must choose between things such as betraying a friend or telling a lie. The thing is, he argues, such dilemmas are unsolvable, because there are so many unknown variables and there is no real context to the scenarios.

However, who cares?
After all, these aren't real cases.

However, anyone who has taken a course in ethics has probably also been presented with real ethical problems too: What should the law be on euthanasia? Is embryo research in order to find cures for diseases justifiable? Western moral philosophers seem just as unable to come up with consistent answers to these debates. After all, where do we start? Which meta-ethical scheme should we start with?

MacIntyre suggests that since the enlightenment, this never-ending argument has led Western ethics towards an impasse. Since there is no agreement on a starting point, the different sides to these debates have become 'incommensurable'. When people get understandably disillusioned, they set out on a road towards a moral relativism (or Nietzschean nihilism) where there are no right answers; where anybody's viewpoint is considered equally valid and there is no such thing as moral truth. Whilst I can sympathize with some of those who have argued that such relativism is rational, I share MacIntyre's distaste for this state of affairs. It is all too easy for people to take the cop-out route of just saying: this is my point of view, that's your view, and that's that.

Aristotle's ethics, however, offers us a starting point. There is a common goal to moral philosophy: to achieve eudaimonia (i.e. to live well). Everybody wants to be good, and everybody wants to be happy. Being virtuous, the Nicomachean Ethics showed us, was not a choice between doing the right thing or being happy. One isn't tied to fixed rules, nor does one have to act as if 'beneficial' consequences are all that matters.

Although I admit that it's not as if everything falls into place once you accept this basis of eudaimonia, I am inclined to agree that this is the way forward. Deciding what the virtues are is the next step. Understanding how to live in accordance with the appropriate virtues is another aspect to develop. However, within a society, I reckon these can be largely agreed upon, and provide a much better launchpad for real moral debates, rather than the formulas (both simplistic and complex) proposed to deal with a hypothetical dilemma-based ethics.

There are many critiques of MacIntyre's ethics that I would generally agree with, however as for his argument for a return to 'virtue ethics' - (which Elizabeth Anscombe and others have done too, I should point out) - I am thoroughly in favour.