Virtue or Freedom?

1400 words, 6 minute read

Growing up in the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic enclave of Boston (1950’s), I was taught to regard morality as a matter of good vs. bad habits: “This is getting to be a habit, don’t let this become a habit, once something becomes a habit...” Of course, when you’re a healthy boy growing up in the Holy See of American Puritanism, under the shadow of the Salem Witch Trials, one ‘bad habit’ eclipses all others.

According to the ethics du jour, bad habits are easily acquired and self-reinforcing, perpetually delivering their dopamine treats. But there is a catch: so-called ‘bad habits’ are never ultimately satisfying. The cravings they address are only met temporarily and we require ever stronger dopamine injections just to attain a consistent level of relief.

Yes, relief (rather than pleasure) is the appropriate word. Unindulged, bad habits can be quite painful. Indulged, they intensify to the point where the addiction and the habit become more painful than the original urge. It’s a lose-lose proposition.

Bad habits are self-destructive. Like cancer cells, they spread triumphantly through the body, until they kill it. Like harmful bacteria, they reproduce until they destroy their host…and themselves in the process.

Worse yet, bad habits are supported by ubiquitous triggers. We are all alcoholics condemned to watch perpetual beer commercials during our favorite football games. An R-rated movie might not be ‘sinful’ in itself, but it could lead to sinful behavior. It ‘prepares a fertile field for Satan’s seed’.

Muslims may have the inside track here. They avoid alcohol, for example, not because it is sinful per se but because it may stimulate sinful desires and, lowering our defenses, induce us to give in to ‘self-destructive urges’.

Fortunately, however unrealistically, Roman Catholic (RCC) ethics offers an antidote to this death spiral, i.e. a litany of so-called virtues.  According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good.” In other words, virtue is the fruit of good habits.

Nor is there any shortage of virtues in the Roman Catholic pantheon:

o   First, the 3 theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity (love).

o   Then the 4 cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

o   Finally, the 7 lively virtues (vs. deadly sins): humility (vs. pride), generosity (vs. greed), chastity (vs. lust), patience (vs. anger), temperance (vs. gluttony), kindness (vs. envy), diligence (vs. sloth).

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Being a child in the 1950’s meant being an adolescent in the ‘60s and so we discovered Existentialism: Camus, Sartre, and Abbie Hoffman. No more talk of ‘filthy habits’ or ‘silly virtues’, only freedom, the freedom to make one’s own choices, to define one’s own morality.

The 60’s meant being exposed to, and for us adopting, an ethic of radical freedom: I know who I am and I know that I can be whoever I want to be. When nothing is forbidden, everything is permitted (Dostoevsky), however unwise. And so we became libertarians…or libertines.

However beneficial ‘virtues’ may be, ‘habitual dispositions’ compromise our liberty and therefore constitute bad faith. Habits, even good habits, undermine existential freedom.

Unfortunately, few of us at that time were familiar with the writings of Pope Leo XIII . Leo (c. 1880) pointed out what is unthinkable but also obvious: ‘freedom’ and ‘morality’ are denotatively synonymous, even though they are connotative opposites.

To act morally is to freely choose good over evil; freedom is the ability to make such choices without any prior constraints or limitations. Leo points out that, absent such constraints, no reasonable person would choose anything other than the greatest available good (as they define it). Choosing ‘the lesser good’ is prima facie evidence of compromised freedom…or unconsciousness.

Leo freed ethics from spirit crushing habit. We don’t need an habitual disposition to do good; given the chance, and the choice, we all do good, freely and consciously. So everything is tied up neatly with a bow. Freedom yes, morality yes, habit no! Simple…as long you’re not troubled by the unarticulated ontological assumptions.

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We take it for granted that our actions freely follow conscious deliberation and we only apply the yardstick of ‘morality’ to such actions. Our whole legal system is built around this mindset. Murder requires pre-mediation and even manslaughter requires intent…and the freedom to have done otherwise.

When the facts are not in dispute, an offender’s defense will often raise questions about their capacity to act consciously, free of any external, or even internal, constraint. Such defenses, though not always successful, often rely on one or more of these mitigating circumstances:

o   I feared for my safety or for the safety/wellbeing of a loved one.

o   I was the victim of habitual abuse, now or in childhood.

o   I suffer from PTSD.

o   I was intoxicated.

o   I have diminished mental capacity.

o   I could not distinguish right from wrong.

o   I am not sane.

Such circumstances can lead to a reduced charge, a shorter sentence, an ‘alternative committal’, or even an outright acquittal. But what if our ‘barely acknowledged assumptions’ are wrong? Consider: during a given day we make thousands of decisions. How many of these decisions are preceded by thorough ethical analysis?

Someone bumps me in the Starbuck’s coffee line and I react, I swerve to avoid an unseen pedestrian, I take two bites of my Double Whopper before I put it down for swig of Coke; I have no idea what I did last night (after 10 everything’s a blur); I took 10 breaths in the past minute and my heart beat 60 times.

Fact is, most of our life happens with limited or no conscious involvement. Does that mean that morality doesn’t apply in these situations, that we are not responsible for these actions?

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The #1 intellectual conundrum today concerns the origin and nature of consciousness. It has been a topic of inquiry at least since Socrates…and 2500 years on we are no closer than Plato was to a satisfactory answer:

o   We are nowhere near a consensus.

o   Most of the current models are non-sensical.

o   We are not even sure what we’re looking for.

o   And we don’t know if we’ve framed the question properly.

Some progress! And now, a new model, more of an anti-model, is gaining traction: what if consciousness does not drive action but derives from it? What if we leap before we look? Recent neurological studies support this conjecture: fMRIs show that the brain makes decisions before we are consciously aware of those decisions.

In that case, consciousness is about rationale, nor reasoning. We act…and then we build a narrative to explain, justify, or at least contextualize our action. Our lives are movies and our conscious minds are the audience. That said, if we boo, hiss, and cheer in the proper places, we can claim the moral high ground. We are ethicists even if we are not agents.

If we buy this argument, i.e. that we make ethical decisions, choices, that are dimly, or not at all, conscious, have we turned morality into a spectator sport? Are we limited to cheering for ourselves when we inadvertently act in a way that conforms to our values?

Perhaps…but maybe not. What if we could train our unconscious ‘minds’ to behave ethically, i.e. to make morally desirable decisions? Would that allow us to claim ‘agency once removed’? But how on earth could we do that?

Well, you could spend a day in Sister Mary Martha’s Grade 3 classroom (1955). You, not me, been there, done that! Then we could practice behaving morally, hoping to turn our conscious ad hoc behavior into unconscious habits, good habits, virtues, habitual and firm dispositions to do good.

That might endear us to the Pope Leos (XIV as well as XIII) but would it violate our pledge of allegiance to Existentialism? How could it? Habitual behavior is unconscious behavior. It is en soi, not pour soi, and yet it is not determined. It is free and value driven but not conscious. But our decision to practice the 14 virtues (above), i.e. to cultivate good habits, firm dispositions to do good, is conscious. So virtue or freedom becomes virtue and freedom!